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TVith Lafayette in America 




-ayucUc 



WITH LAFAYETTE 
IN AMERICA 



By 



OCTAVIA ROBERTS 

V 
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS FROM OLD PRINTS 




BOSTON AND NEW YORK 

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 

MDCCCCXIX 






COPYRIGHT, 1919, BY OCTAVIA ROBERTS CORNEAU 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 



©CI.A5 3 6 5()8 



/ o 



TO MY BROTHER 

NICHOLAS ROBERTS 



"When Lafayette Is forgotten our enthusiasm In the 
cause of liberty will have departed and the hour of our 
slavery will have arrived." 

Illinois Intelligencer^ June lo, 1825 



FOREWORD 

NOT many years since I knew familiarly 
an old lady nearing her centenary who 
had seen and been blessed by Lafayette. In her 
quavering voice she would repeat the lines she 
and her schoolmates had recited on the day 
when the distinguished Frenchman, in his sixty- 
seventh year, had driven through her New Jer- 
sey village. Her eyes would kindle as she related 
the particulars of his reception, the triumphal 
arch which the village people had quickly reared 
when it was known he would come their way, 
the flowers the children plucked to throw in 
his path, the excitement of the minister who 
was chosen to address him. As I listened to 
the story, a vanished generation lived again, to 
whom the visit of Lafayette was cause for 
such rejoicing that cannon rocked the land and 
States vied with States for the honor of his pres- 

ix 



Foreword 

ence; while behind that world of 1824 an- 
other world was faintly shadowed, peopled with 
those who had loved and known Lafayette the 
youth, who had served with him in battle and 
shivered with him in camp. 

And then the old lady died and I heard the 
name of Lafayette no more. In the histories he 
was dismissed with a brief mention that seemed 
inadequate to explain the enthusiasm that he 
had aroused so generally in his lifetime. Weighed 
in the cold balance of posterity his contribution 
to American freedom seemed no greater than 
that of a half-dozen other foreign-born officers. 
But to the story of Lafayette there was yet an- 
other chapter. 

The Great War broke over the world. Amer- 
ica called on thousands of young men to cross 
the sea to join in the fight on the side of Eng- 
land, Italy, Belgium — France. There were 
books and articles without end explaining the 
cause, justifying America's action. But abstract 

X 



Foreword 

principles seldom fire the blood. What, then, 
kindled a genuine enthusiasm within a million 
breasts? The learned have found it absurd, but 
again it was the name of Lafayette. He, a 
Frenchman, had stood by us when we needed 
help. Americans in his name owed it to him to 
lend a hand in France's desperate hour. There 
it was in a nutshell. The humblest, most illiter- 
ate lad in khaki could understand. A youth of 
nineteen in buff and blue beckoned them on. 
Lafayette was France. If France disclaimed it, 
so much the worse for her. Across the sea they 
went, therefore, those thousands, Romance at 
the helm. "We are coming, Lafayette,*' they 
sang. And their mood found full expression 
when the Commander-in-chief of the American 
army, laying a wreath on the hero's tomb, said 
simply, "Lafayette, we have come." 

And so it is of this Lafayette, whose name 
could thrice stir America, of whom I shall write. 
If the sketches in the successive chapters can 

xi 



Foreword 

give to the past anything of the vivid reality of 
the old lady^s narration, I shall count myself 
happy. 

Oct AVI A Roberts 

Boston, July 4, igig 



CONTENTS 

Part I: The Marquis 

I. A Long Voyage and a Southern Wel- 
come 3 

II. Philadelphia 20 

III. Old Battle-Grounds 30 

IV. Bethlehem 51 
V. Valley Forge 66 

VI. FiLANCE — An Interlude 83 

VII. Two Young Men 100 

VIII. YoRKTOWN 120 

Part II: The Nation^ s Guest 

I. New York greets Lafayette 147 

II. Philadelphia greets Lafayette 164 

III. The Stories the Rivers Tell 177 

IV. Visits to Great Men 200 

V. The Cordial Southern Cities 222 
VI. The Frontier 240 

VII. In the Cradle of American Liberty 261 

VIII. In the City of Washington 279 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

Lafayette Photogravure Frontispiece 

From the portrait by Charles Wilson Peak 

Charleston in 1780 14 

From an old print 

Old State House, Philadelphia .... 22 

From an engraving by J. Rogers, published by Virtue, Emmons & 
Co., New York, in 1857 

The State House Yard, Philadelphia, as en- 
closed DURING THE REVOLUTION .... 26 

From a heliotype in Etting's Historical Account of the Old State 
House of Pennsylvania (Boston, 1876) 

The Old Church at Freehold, New Jersey . . 42 

From an engraving by J. Smillie 

Bethlehem 52 

From an old print 

La Marquise de Lafayette 84 

From a woodcut in De Lescure's Les Grandes Epouses (Paris, 1884) 
after a pastel portrait 

Sv^^ord presented to Lafayette by the United 
States Congress 96 

From a woodcut in Cloquet's Souvenirs du General Lafayette 

The Beverley-Robinson House at Garrison's, 
New York 112 

From an old woodcut 

Lafayette's Headquarters at Richmond . .130 

From a woodcut made in 1858 

Lafayette 145 

From an engraving after the painting by Ary SchefFer 

View OF Hell Gate 154 

From a mezzotint by M. Merigot, published March I, 1807, by 
James Cundee, Albion Press, London 



Illustrations 



Silk Handkerchief printed in Germantown, 
Pennsylvania, to Commemorate Lafayette's 
Visit TO Philadelphia IN 1824 166 

Reception to Lafayette at the Chew House, 
Philadelphia 170 

From a painting 

Mount Vernon 186 

From an old lithograph by E. Sachse & Co., Baltimore 

The Tomb of Washington 190 

From an engraving by J. Archer after a drawing by W. H. Bartlett 

Monticello 202 

From an old woodcut 

The Hermitage: Home of Andrew Jackson . .218 

From a lithograph by Pendleton, New York, after a drawing by 
H. Walton 

The Balise, Mississippi River 236 

From a hand-colored mezzotint engraved by J. Hill after a painting 
by E. Van Blon 

St. Louis and the Mississippi River about 1849 . 240 

From a colored lithograph by Arnz & Co. Reproduced by permission 
of the St. Louis Public Library 

Pierre Chouteau House, St. Louis .... 244 

From an etching by Pierre Chouteau. Reproduced by permission of 
the Missouri Historical Society 

John Hancock's House, Beacon Hill, Boston . 264 

From an engraving by Hill in the Massachusetts Magazine, July, 1789 

The Capitol at Washington 280 

From an engraving by M. Osborne after a drawing by W. H. 
Bartlett 

The Ascent to the Capitol, Washington . . 288 

From an old engraving 



With Lafayette in America 



PART I 
" The Marquis " 



TVith Lafayette in America 

CHAPTER I 

A Long Voyage and a Southern Welcome 

IT is the year 1777. England makes war 
on her Colonies, a rebellious group of 
thirteen States that have dared to defy their 
King, His Majesty George the Third. Our 
particular interest, however, is not in England, 
nor, for the moment, even in the Colonies, 
but is centered on a group of Frenchmen on 
board the ship La Victoire that is just sailing, 
as we open these pages, from the Spanish 
port of Los Pasajes out into the broad waters 
of the Atlantic. 

It is the month of April, to be specific, 
the 20th day of April, which in this year 
falls on Sunday. The party on board consists 
of some fifteen or sixteen Frenchmen all of 



With Lafayette in America 

whom have been promised commissions in 
the American army by Silas Deane, agent in 
Paris for the United States of America. One 
among the party receives on every hand par- 
ticular marks of deference, which is the more 
surprising since he is an unassuming youth 
of not more than nineteen years. There is 
nothing in his manner, which is boyish, gra- 
cious, and frank, to indicate why he is treated 
with such marked respect. Any of the crew, 
however, can tell you that he is the owner of 
the ship ; any of the French officers can tell 
you that he is none other than the Marquis de 
Lafayette, a nobleman of fortune of one of 
the ancient houses of France who is actually 
at this very moment running away from Eu- 
rope in defiance of the commands of his family 
and his King in order to join the " rebels " in 
America. Surely a voyage and an enterprise 
well undertaken in April, the month of All 
Fools. 



A Long Voyage 

Of the Marquis's personal history we get 
but a word or two from his fellow travelers. 
He had married three years before the daugh- 
ter of the Due d'Ayen, of the great family of 
Noailles, a match that might well satisfy am- 
bition. Moreover, even the court gossips would 
agree that he tenderly loved his young wife 
and the little daughter she had borne him ; that 
he was on the most affectionate terms with her 
family. And yet the idea of going to fight for 
the Americans, once having gotten in his head, 
he had defied the Due d'Ayen and defied the 
King, and left his wife, who was facing a sec- 
ond maternity, with no more than a written 
word of farewell. 

" Some men don't know when they 're in 
luck," a sailor muses tritely ; and then, belying 
his words, he follows the Marquis's figure with 
eyes of honest admiration. How young he is, 
how amiable, how full of life : a man who in- 
tends to taste life to the lees, come what may, 

5 



With Lafayette in America 

In the meantime having learned something 
of the Marquis de Lafayette, let us walk about 
the ship and make the acquaintance of the other 
members of the party, some of whom begin to 
look a little wan as the ship plunges on its way. 

There is the Baron de Kalb, a German by 
birth, but a Frenchman by adoption, a man of 
military experience, about fifty years of age. 
This is not his first journey across the sea, and 
English therefore is not unfamiliar to him. And 
then there are M. de Gimat, M. de Bedaulx, 
and M. de la Colombe, all destined to be aides 
to Lafayette. And there are others, some of 
whom are never to draw a sword, but are to be 
ignominiously shipped home again by order of 
the new government as superfluities of whom 
America has no need. But no man knows the 
fate in store for him as he stands on the deck 
watching the fast-receding shores. 

Young Lafayette sees the land fade from 
sight with a sinking heart. Amidst the diffi- 

6 



A Long Voyage 

culties of departure he had had little time to 
question his course; but now the great waters 
shut him fast into the small ship-world, leaving 
him time to question whether he had done right 
to wound those dearest to him by overriding 
their wishes. Will his beloved wife ever forgive 
him for leaving her without one word of fare- 
well? Will his little Henriette turn from him 
as a stranger when he returns ? Does his wife 
love him the less ? Will she ever understand ? 
And then he recalls from what inanities he 
had fled : dull functions at the court, dull duties 
at military posts, a "useless journey" to Italy, 
with no chance of distinguishing himself, offered 
by his wife's family as an inducement to him to 
give up the projected trip to America. Surely 
he was right to follow his deepest convictions 
and draw his sword as the defender of that lib- 
erty which he adored. The shores fade. He 
turns his eyes bravely in the direction of the 
unknown. 



With Lafayette in America 

This was not the era of rapid travel. The 
ten remaining days of April passed slowly on 
La Victoire, May's thirty-one passed in equal 
tedium. Lafayette was no lover of the sea. He 
called it no fine names, merely found it a " dreary 
plain." " Nothing but sky, nothing but water, 
and to-morrow it will be the same." He found 
the journey wearisome and was certain that he 
and the seahad a most " doleful influence " upon 
each other. The winds, like the King and the 
Due d'Ayen, opposed his progress every league 
of the way, so that June still found him on the 
water, though by the end of the first week of 
that month he saw birds. Despite his natural 
vivacity the days had been long and dull, filled 
only with the study of English and his military 
books. At night the ship was forced to sail 
without lights and he concluded one of the love- 
liest of the letters he wrote to his wife by tell- 
ing her that even in the darkness his fingers 
were directed by the impulses of his heart and 

8 



A Long Voyage 

that he had no need of lights to tell her that he 
loved her and should love her all his life. At the 
end of fifty-four days the sailing vessel dropped 
anchor off the coast of South Carolina in North 
Inlet, near Georgetown. The journey by sea was 
at an end. 

It was afternoon when the ship came to an- 
chor. Impatient of delay, Lafayette and several 
others of his party including the Baron de Kalb 
and an American named Price, who had sailed 
with them, determined to push for land at once 
in search of a pilot who could guide the ship 
to Charleston. The ship's yawl was lowered and 
this advance guard clambered into its cramped 
space. For five or six hours they rowed up the 
inlet, but as the tide went down it became im- 
possible to push on in the yawl. Then it was 
that the party came upon some negroes in an 
oyster boat, who offered to take one or two of 
the travelers to shore to the house of their mas- 
ter. It was Mr. Price and De Kalb who fol- 



With Lafayette in America 

lowed Lafayette into the rough boat. About 
midnight these three went ashore and made 
their way toward a light that streamed from a 
house in the distance. Young Lafayette was as 
full of interest and curiosity as Columbus him- 
self once must have been. But the deep bay of 
watch-dogs greeted them. A voice from the 
house rang out challengingly : 

" Who 's there ? " 

It was Baron de Kalb who answered, roaring 
out their names and purpose. If he had chosen 
to give Lafayette's full name and title, " Marie 
Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, 
Marquis de Lafayette," it might indeed have 
astonished the inmates, but doubtless the good 
Baron's response was more brief! The door 
swung wide. Colonel Benjamin Huger bade 
them all welcome. "A kind, friendly man," 
Lafayette wrote of him later, and so Huger 
proved himself to be. He drew them in, him- 
self delighted with the adventure. To-morrow 

10 



A Long Voyage 

or next day he would take them to Charleston, 
a city well worth seeing ; they must surely go 
to Charleston to fit themselves out for the long 
journey to Philadelphia. We may be sure that 
he offered them refreshment before sending 
the colored boys ahead to show the way to 
rooms. 

Lafayette listened attentively to all that was 
said. He made some phrases himself, with 
growing confidence. His quick glance took in 
with delight the Southern home. He marked 
everywhere the fine, democratic simplicity he 
had hoped to find. Then with his light step he 
went up the broad stairs, following the boy's 
candle. A moment after he was asleep in the 
first bed he had known for many days, having 
first noted with delight the strange curtain of 
protecting mosquito-bar. 

It could not have been later than the follow- 
ing morning that Lafayette wrote to his wife : 

" I have arrived, my dearest love, in perfect 

II 



With Lafayette in America 

health, at the house of an American officer; 
and by the most fortunate chance in the world 
a French vessel is on the point of sailing ; con- 
ceive how happy I am. I am going this eve- 
ning to Charleston, when I will write to you. 
There is no important news. The campaign 
is opened, but there is no fighting or at least 
very little. The manners in this part of the 
country are simple, polite, and worthy in every 
respect of the country in which the noble name 
of liberty is constantly repeated. I intended 
writing to Madame d'Ayen [his mother-in-law], 
but I find it is impossible. Adieu, adieu, my 
love. From Charleston I shall repair to Phila- 
delphia to rejoin the army. Is it not true that 
you will always love me ?" 

Lafayette had but a scanty smattering of 
English at this time, but it is more than likely 
(that his kind host spoke French as he had been 
educated in Europe and was of French descent. 
In any case young Lafayette made friends with 

12 



A Long Voyage 

the family. We can imagine him taking Colonel 
Huger's three-year-old son Francis on his knee 
while he talked to the child of his own litde 
daughter, Henriette. Whatever he did, the 
young guest who had come upon them all so 
unexpectedly at night made an indelible im- 
pression on this child^s mind. Years later Fran- 
cis Huger while a student in Germany made a 
romantic and daring attempt to rescue Lafayette 
from an Austrian prison. But these days were 
all before them. Lafayette with no thought of 
their shadow fondled the child, smiled at the 
family, engaged a pilot for his comrades wait- 
ing on the ship, and busied himself with his 
own journey to Charleston. For some reason 
he and De Kalb did not make the trip there by 
water with their companions, but borrowed 
mounts from Colonel Huger and rode away 
for Charleston with Mr. Price, who had come 
with them in the oyster boat. 

What a fertile, pleasant land it was over 

13 



With Lafayette in America 

which the newcomers journeyed I An early 
traveler had said of it that it was " a fair and 
spacious Province," adding, of its forests, that 
« the whole country consists of Woods, Groves, 
Marshes and Meadows; it abounds with vari- 
eties of as brave Okes as eye can behold " ; and 
that traveler urged "any industrious and in- 
genious person who wishes to enjoy the Felic- 
ities of this Country to embrace the first oppor- 
tunity to settle there." 

Whether that enthusiast of an earlier day 
would have called a soldier of fortune " an in- 
dustrious and ingenious person" we cannot 
affirm, but certainly the Marquis de Lafayette 
riding blithely to Charleston gave himself up 
completely to the « felicities of the Country." 

Once there he kept his promise to Adrienne, 
his wife, and wrote a letter dated June 1 9. Af- 
ter describing his landing in more detail than 
he had found possible in his first hasty note, he 
said: "I shall now speak to you, my love, about 

14 



A Long Voyage 

the country and its inhabitants who are as 
agreeable as my enthusiasm had led me to imag- 
ine. Simplicity of manner, kindness of heart, 
love of country and of liberty and a delightful 
state of equality are met with universally. . . . 
What gives me most pleasure is to see how 
completely the citizens are all brethren of one 
family. In America there are none poor and 
none even that can be called peasants." 

In this same letter he wrote of a dinner that 
was given in his honor in one of the Charleston 
homes, where he met among a large company 
Generals Robert Howe and William Moultrie. 
Here they sat at table some five hours and drank 
each other's health in fine good humor. Doubt- 
less the old Charleston custom was followed and 
the dinner was served at four o'clock with the 
dessert eaten by candle-light. What a pleasant 
scene to look in upon if we could at will raise the 
curtain on vanished days : the fine old Charles- 
ton house, the groaning board, the numerous 

15 



JVith Lafayette in America 

colored servants, the candles flickering over all 
as the shadows gathered under the gallery, 
showing a company of good patriots who drank 
the health of the romantic youth who sat among 
them. 

What hearty good wishes must have been 
Lafayette's when a few days later he left Charles- 
ton for the long journey to Philadelphia. How 
gayly he waved farewell to his new friends as 
he seated himself beside De Kalb in the light 
carriage which had been purchased for the 
trip. Behind him came two other carriages with 
others of the party, while a negro on horseback 
brought up the rear. Beside the Marquis gal- 
loped a squire, and before him in Hessian uni- 
form rode an outrider, who, ignorant of the 
country though he was, offered his services as 
a guide. But, alas, the light carriages were not 
designed for such roads. At the end of four 
days they were in splinters and Lafayette took 
to horseback. Almost nine hundred miles were 

i6 



A Long Voyage 

to be traversed, but thanks to youth and per- 
fect health, Lafayette minded them not at all. 
One of his companions wrote of the journey 
that after sleeping in woods and being almost 
dead of hunger and of heat, he considered the 
trip as hard as any European campaign would 
have been ; but ** young Fayette " could say of 
that same journey when writing to his wife: 
"The journey is somewhat fatiguing; but al- 
though several of my comrades have suffered 
a great deal I have scarcely been conscious of 
fatigue." 

This same letter, written when still eight 
days from Philadelphia, is filled with ardent 
expressions of Lafayette's desire to reach that 
city. But the reason he gives for his eagerness 
to do so is not to enter the American serv- 
ice, not even to make himself acquainted with 
the great leaders of the Revolution, but the 
lover's hope of finding a letter awaiting him 
there ! 

17 



With Lafayette in America 

" I have received no news of you, and my 
impatience to arrive in Philadelphia to hear 
from you cannot be compared to any other 
earthly feeling. Conceive my state of mind 
after having passed such an immense length 
of time without having received a line from 
my love." 

From Annapolis he writes again taking no 
time to learn anything of the town beyond the 
fact that a ship is to sail soon for France. He 
arms himself with <« a little weapon dipped in 
invisible ink" and writes from there: "I hope 
to receive news of you at Philadelphia and this 
hope adds to the impatience I feel to arrive in 
that city. Adieu, my life, I am in such haste 
that I know not what I write but I do know 
that I love you more tenderly than ever ; that 
the pain of this separation was necessary to 
convince me how very dear you are to me, and 
that I would give this moment half my exist- 
ence for the pleasure of embracing you again 

i8 



A Long Voyage 

and again and telling you with my own lips 
how well I love you/' 

Beautiful and tender words long preserved 
by a loving heart, published when the woman 
who had inspired them had long gone to her 
rest. 

And so, mile after mile, Lafayette rides on 
in the hope of a letter. 



CHAPTER II 

Philadelphia 

A MONTH'S journey after their departure 
from Charleston brought Lafayette and 
his companions to Philadelphia. What the sen- 
sations of the sophisticated Europeans were 
upon entering the American city we can only 
surmise, nor do we know whether private house 
or tavern sheltered them. Perhaps they went to 
that inn, undesignated by name, that had been 
mentioned by John Adams in his diary three 
years earlier. *« The most genteel tavern in 
America " he had called it, adding in praise of 
the supper served him there " that it was as ele- 
gant as ever laid upon a table." 

The young Marquis, we learn from an 
account written by one of the officers of the 
party, arrived in the morning, and, taking 
time merely to brush off the dust of travel, has- 
tened forth, with his companions, to make him- 

20 



Philadelphia 

self known. It is a pleasant picture to dwell 
upon, of Lafayette, his arm drawn through a 
friend's, walking eagerly through those early 
streets of Philadelphia on fire to obtain con- 
firmation of the commission given him in Paris 
by America's representative, Silas Deane, find- 
ing time, though, in characteristic fashion, to 
notice everything that seemed unique or inter- 
esting; for there was never, I think, a more 
wholesome general interest in life than that La- 
fayette possessed. He had it in youth ; he did 
not lose it in age. 

I think he must have paused in the old 
market-place, stopped to note Carpenter's Hall, 
and had time to admire the proportions of the 
State House, with a thrill for that moment of 
the year before when the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence had been signed there. It would be 
worth all the wrath of his French kinsmen, the 
displeasure of his King, to be claimed as a 
fellow patriot by Congress. 

21 



TVith Lafayette in America 

The party went first to John Hancock, the 
President of Congress. No welcome was forth- 
coming from this source. The busy President 
passed them on to one of the Congressmen. 
This Congressman received them with no shade 
of enthusiasm, but took their letters of recom- 
mendation and made an appointment for the 
morrow. Americans official welcome was slow 
in coming ; Philadelphia showed no such cor- 
diality as Charleston had shown. There was 
nothing for it but to wait for the morrow. 

The wait was doubly hard when Lafayette 
made certain that not a line of writing awaited 
him from France. No welcome, no letter, re- 
warded the long ride through the States. It was 
not until some time later that he used the fol- 
lowing words to his "dear heart," but the 
thoughts the words convey must have risen 
bitterly enough to his mind on this first night. 

" Imagine how dreadful it is to be far from 
all I love, in this state of suspense and almost 

22 



Philadelphia 

despair; it is impossible to support it, and I 
feel at the same time that I do not deserve to 
be pitied. Why was I so obstinately bent on 
coming thither? I have been well punished 
for my error; my affections are too strongly 
rooted for me to be able to perform such 
deeds." 

Such reactions have a way of overwhelming 
the stoutest of hearts ; but at nineteen hope 
quickly springs up again. Next morning the 
group of French officers go to the State House 
to keep the appointment. Long minutes pass 
there while nobility, vulgarly speaking, is al- 
lowed to cool its heels as democracy takes its 
time. When at last the member of Congress 
whom the party had met the day before ap- 
pears, he presents Mr. James Lovell, member 
from Massachusetts. "This gentleman speaks 
French,'* he says. "He is interested with the 
matters that concern people of your nationality. 
Hereafter your communications will all be with 

23 



JVith Lafayette in America 

him." Mr. Lovell talks to them in the street 
and treats them all «< in excellent French, like a 
set of adventurers." 

"It seems," he says coldly, **that French 
officers have a great fancy to enter our service 
uninvited. It is true we were in need of officers 
last year, but now we have experienced offi- 
cers and plenty of them " ; and, turning on his 
heel, he leaves them. Down the street they 
watch him go. Little does he dream that by re- 
fusing to welcome Lafayette he has lost his sole 
chance for immortality. 

And Lafayette stands there with his party in 
great discomfiture. What is he to do ? Shall he 
return to France and beg pardon like a whipped 
boy ? Shall he return to be the j est of the court ? 
Never ! He had not come to America for small 
and selfish ends; he had come to serve the 
cause of Liberty. Liberty would accept him in 
some role, he felt sure. Again he appeals to 
Congress. He scribbles a note and persuades 

24 



Philadelphia 

a messenger to take it in. "After the sacrifices 
I have made," he says, «I have the right to 
exact two favors; one is to serve at my own 
expense, the other is to serve at first as a vol- 



unteer." 



This note, modest and generous, scores its 
point. Congress, weary with the airs and the 
demands of foreigners, cannot debate this offer. 
On July 3 i, four days after Lafayette's arrival 
in Philadelphia, Congress informs him that his 
services are accepted, and that he is to have the 
rank and commission of Major-General in the 
army of the United States. 

With the grace and unfailing courtesy that 
are his by nature and by training, Lafayette 
writes his acceptance and thanks to Congress, 
and asks that he may serve near the person of 
General Washington " till such time as he may 
see fit to entrust me with a division of the 
army." Nor does his generous spirit forget to 
mention the members of his party, of whom 

25 



With Lafayette in America 

Congress had taken no notice. He adds, in his 
odd, new English, " it is now as an American 
that I '11 mention every day to Congress the 
officers who came over with me, whose inter- 
ests are for me as my own." 

How that generous remembrance of them 
must have swept away all jealousy of the for- 
tunate Lafayette from the neglected officers. 
It took more than that mention of them <* every 
day to Congress," however, to elevate this 
group in the army. The most Congress ever 
did for the majority of them was to pay their 
way back to France ; for except in one or two 
cases no commissions were forthcoming. De 
Kalb was one of the most notable of those who 
found places. 

It was shortly after the appointment from 
Congress that the welcome of America to her 
would-be lover found a perfect and a fitting 
voice. At a private party, made up of a few 
Congressmen and officers, Lafayette marked a 

26 




EC 
O 

5 

Q 
O 

CA 

o 
J- 
o 

IZ 



Philadelphia 

tall and commanding form. Instantly his heart 
instructed him that it could be no one else than 
Washington. "It was impossible to mistake 
for a moment," wrote Lafayette in reminis- 
cence of that perfect hour, " his majestic figure 
and deportment ; nor was he less distinguished 
by his noble affability of manner." 

With noble affability, indeed, Washington 
immediately distinguished the young French- 
man. Signaling him out from the little com- 
pany, the General complimented the glowing 
boy for his zeal and his sacrifices and invited 
him to consider as his own the commander's 
home. 

Mr. Lovell with his cold words was blotted 
out! What mattered anything now that Wash- 
ington, the hero of America, had spoken, had 
understood. How justified instantly was the 
long sea voyage, the hard travel over the un- 
broken country — how little every hardship be- 
came! Liberty had her spokesman after all, 

27 



With Lafayette in America 

and she had chosen no petty, preoccupied 
Congressman, but the greatest and best of her 
sons. 

A very short time afterward, Lafayette re- 
paired to the camp where Washington was in- 
stalled, near Philadelphia, and became " one 
of the family, '* taking his place on the staff 
of the commander-in-chief. 

In that old, historic book of hers, so filled 
with memories, Philadelphia has one more pic- 
ture of the son America had adopted as her 
own, before our story moves on to other scenes. 
Let us take our stand at one of the windows 
and watch with the women and children there 
— some of the women poor enough patriots, 
we must confess, their toryism only partly con- 
cealed. On its way to Wilmington, following 
the evacuation of Neshaminy, the army is 
marching through the city. Listen to the fifes I 
Down the street the rebels, or the patriots, as 
you choose to call them, come, eleven thousand 

28 



Philadelphia 

young men from the woods and the farms, de- 
fying the King, risking their all for independ- 
ence. They are illy armed and illy clothed, but 
some semblance of uniformity is given to their 
dress by the sprigs of living green they wear 
in their hats. And that living green is a sym- 
bol of a cause that shall not die I At their head 
rides Washington, stately, majestic; "but who 
is that bright-eyed young fellow at his side, the 
one with the high forehead and aristocratic 
profile ?'' some one asks. 

« Le Marquis de Lafayette ! Surely you 
have heard of him ! He ran away from France 
to become part of the army, leaving a young 
wife and a child." 

" How shocking ! " says a Tory. 

« How glorious I " breathes a patriot. 

On comes the procession, the fifes sweetly 
tooting. Washington has already disappeared 
in the distance, the radiant youth at his side. 



CHAPTER III 

Old Battle-Grounds 

IT was but a short time after that fine march 
through the streets of Philadelphia by his 
chosen leader's side that young Lafayette was 
to see battle. The soldiers with the green sprigs 
in their caps passed through the capital on 
August 24. Just eighteen days after that oc- 
casion the Batde of Brandywine was fought. 
When the army had marched through Phila- 
delphia, it was in pursuit of General Howe, 
who had embarked with all his troops from 
New York City for an unknown port. When 
it was learned that the British were in the 
Chesapeake, Washington hurried the army in 
that direction. From Philadelphia, therefore, 
the troops went straight to Wilmington, Dela- 
ware. From there Washington began to recon- 
noiter. We have a glimpse of him riding to a 
point some twenty miles distant accompanied 

30 



old Battle - Grounds 

by Generals Greene and Lafayette, where, from 
a high hill, the three looked down upon the 
Head of Elk and saw with their own eyes the 
British troops. What a thrill the young French- 
man must have felt, he who hitherto had known 
the British only in drawing-rooms. 

He must, on this little excursion, have had 
a chance to make the acquaintance of General 
Greene in a pleasant, informal way. Perhaps 
it was the beginning of the esteem Lafayette 
always felt for that General, next in ability to 
Washington himself From what different back- 
grounds the two officers had sprung! Lafa- 
yette, from early youth, had been possessed 
of all that the world prizes. Greene had been 
a poor Quaker boy in Rhode Island. By the 
greatest effort he had managed to give himself 
the rudiments of an education. His Quaker 
traditions and a slight lameness seemed to 
make a military career a remote possibility; 
but, fired by patriotism, he had defied the re- 

31 



With Lafayette in America 

llgious organization to which he was attached 
by so many ties, and he had managed, after 
some painful experiences, to overcome the prej- 
udice against himself which his physical disa- 
bility aroused. So, by a strange whim of fate, 
these two officers stood by Washington and 
looked down upon the British. To gain that 
height one had defied his Church, the other his 
King. 

That night they all slept at a farmhouse and 
were beaten by a storm, they who might so 
easily have encountered a greater foe. The fate 
of the American cause, had the British but 
known it, lay within their hands that night. 

The days that followed were filled with re- 
ports, false and true, of the British movements. 
It became more and more certain that there 
would be an engagement. Washington knew 
that the Americans were as yet in no condition 
to face that powerful foe, but Congress and the 
country seemed to demand an encounter. 

32 



Old Battle- Grounds 

When Howe tried to cut oiF a possible re- 
treat to Philadelphia, Washington moved his 
troops farther up the shallow stream that was 
known as the Brandy wine. On the i ith of 
September the battle broke. 

To see the battle as a picture we must set 
the scene with the shallow, lazy, little Brandy- 
wine at the point called Chad^s Ford. We must 
have, too, a thin line of woods, an open plain, 
and a height where the few pieces of artillery 
thunder. Conflicting reports are constantly 
brought to Washington. Two roads of the same 
name cause the greatest confusion. Lafayette, 
in his role of volunteer, is attached to the Gen- 
eral, but when it becomes plain that the right 
wing under General Sullivan will see action, 
the spirited boy gets permission to join that 
ofEcer. It is to this wing, therefore, that we 
also attach ourselves. 

At about ten o^clock on this September 
morning, the attack begins, the Hessians throw- 

33 



JVith Lafayette in America 

ing themselves upon the American outposts 
and driving them back while Lord Cornwallis 
at the same time endeavors to swing behind 
the army. He and Lafayette are but begin- 
ning their military acquaintance. How little 
the great Earl dreams that in this boy he will 
eventually meet his match. General Sullivan is 
scarcely aware that the British have come behind 
him when the fury of the attack breaks upon his 
troops. They cannot withstand the hot assault 
and their lines crack. Right and left wings give 
way and at last the center. Pell-mell the sol- 
diers turn in a retreat that becomes a rout. La- 
fayette tries in vain to stem the river of men. 
Suddenly he grows faint and sees to his dismay 
that blood gushes from a wound in his leg. 
His aide-de-camp, Gimat, one of the French- 
men who had crossed the sea with him, runs 
forward and, with his help, Lafayette manages 
to scramble on his horse and so escape cap- 
ture. Somewhere reinforcements have come 

34 



Old Battle- Grounds 

up. General Greene is making a firm stand. 
But it is too late to retrieve the day. In wild 
confusion the troops, many of them raw boys, 
push on toward Chester. Night comes on. The 
road is crowded with the wounded, with bag- 
gage, with the weary men stumbling on through 
the dark. 

At Chester Lafayette's wound is dressed. 
Reports come flying in that many British have 
been wounded also, and that they have gone so 
far as to ask the rebels to lend them doctors. 
From Chester Lafayette is taken by water to 
Philadelphia where he meets with great kind- 
ness. Although he has not slept for several days 
and is exhausted from the battle and retreat, he 
writes at once to his wife. From that letter we 
take his own account of Brandy wine : 

" I must begin by telling you that we fought 
seriously last night and that we were not the 
strongest on the field of battle. Our Americans 
after having stood their ground for some time, 

35 



With Lafayette in America 

ended at length by being routed ; whilst en- 
deavoring to rally them the English honored 
me with a musket ball in the leg — but it is a 
trifle, my dearest love. . . . This affair will, I 
fear, be attended with bad consequences for 
America. We will endeavor, if possible, to re- 
pair the evil. You must have received many 
letters from me unless the English have been 
equally ill disposed towards my epistles as to- 
wards my legs. . . . Our retreat and my jour- 
ney hither took up the whole of last night. 
I am perfectly well taken care of in this 
place." 

Lafayette could not remain in Philadelphia, 
however, for it soon became certain that the 
British were advancing on the city and would 
occupy it. Again a wild retreat began, this 
time of civilians. Lafayette was taken to Bris- 
tol, thence to Bethlehem, where, in the great 
stone houses of the Moravians, the wounded 
were being sheltered. 

36 



Old Battle- Grounds 

When we meet him next in action, it is on 
no such bloody field as Brandywine. We must 
bridge with a word the time between that en- 
counter and the time of the retreat of Barren 
Hill. Some nine months had elapsed. In this 
time much had happened. Lafayette had lain 
ill of his wound at Bethlehem. He had been 
encamped at Valley Forge. He had gone to 
Albany in a sledge by Congress's orders in 
the hope of making an attack on Canada, The 
Canadian expedition had been but a dream, 
and Lafayette had returned to camp in April 
in a state of great discontent at his enforced 
idleness. 

On the 1 8 th of May Washington had sent 
Lafayette with a detachment of eight thousand 
troops to Barren Hill, a point about midway 
between Philadelphia and Valley Forge. The 
commander's directions had been long and ex- 
plicit. He had outlined the purposes of the ex- 
pedition as being threefold, to be a security to 

27 



With Lafayette in America 

the camp, to interrupt the communication with 
Philadelphia, and to obtain intelligence of the 
enemy's motions and designs; and he had 
warned the young Major-General that the de- 
tachment was a very valuable one, and that any 
accident happening to it would be a severe 
blow to the army. 

If Lafayette had had the eyes to look into 
Philadelphia's streets from the heights of Bar- 
ren Hill, and to penetrate the walls of a cer- 
tain mansion belonging to a rich Quaker, 
how amazed he would have been. Weary from 
the long hardships of the winter, doubtless he 
would have thought he dreamed; for the Brit- 
ish in Philadelphia were making merry. A car- 
nival was going on in compliment to General 
Howe, who was returning to England to be 
replaced by General Clinton. The river was 
thronged with boats, gay with flags. In a 
splendid galley the generals floated, squired 
by flatboats. After an aquatic parade the party 

38 



Old Battle- Grounds 

alighted and proceeded to an open amphi- 
theater. Here a group of fair women sit en- 
throned, dressed in full Turkish costume, while 
before them British soldiers, tricked out in 
red-and-white satin and who knows what more, 
make a mock toumament. The Knights of the 
Burning Mountain, the Knights of the Blended 
Rose, they are styled. One knight in a bright 
suit of scarlet attracts our attention. He is 
young, witty, talented. The ladies adore him. 
It is to his ingenuity and industry that they 
owe much of this day's pleasure. He is Major 
John Andre. He is squired by his young 
brother, a lad of nineteen. The great tickets 
of red and gold, emblazoned with General 
Howe's arms and with other devices, are An- 
dre's invention. When the tournament is over, 
we see him again at the tea, the dance, the sup- 
per that follows. How proud the Tory girls are 
when he shows them favor ! Little does he wreck 
of an anxious young Frenchman entrenching 

39 



With Lafayette in America 

himself on Barren Hill on that May day. Little 
does Lafayette know of Andre and his gay folly, 
yet it is destined that they two are to meet in a 
grave hour. 

Washington had ordered Lafayette to pro- 
cure " trusty and intelligent spies " to help him 
to gather information of British movements, but 
before this could be done a " trusty and intelli- 
gent" British spy had succeeded in inform- 
ing General Howe of Lafayette's post. On the 
evening of the following day a good patriot 
managed to get the intelligence to Lafayette 
that two detachments of British were marching 
upon him. With incredible rapidity the British 
arrived. An older head than Lafayette's might 
have been flustered by the sight of General Grant 
before him and the knowledge that General Gray 
was behind him. Other troops were advancing 
in the other direction. The words of Washington 
must have leaped at " the Marquis " from the 
written orders. « You will remember that your 

40 



Old Battle- Grounds 

detachment is a very valuable one and that any 
accident happening to it will be a severe blow 
to this army." Plainly he must retreat at once. 
The one road that led to safety was a long 
one. The British were situated so that they could 
reach the ford on the river that must be crossed 
by a shorter route. By various subterfuges, 
however, Lafayette managed to conceal his 
movements. When soldiers were seen filing in 
good order over Maddock's Ford, the British 
did not dream Lafayette's main division was pass- 
ing. With a loss of eight or nine men, the young 
General managed to save the detachment of the 
army entrusted to his care. What rejoicing there 
must have been when he arrived, a little breath- 
less, at the anxious camp ! Washington dubbed 
it a masterly retreat, but Lafayette in the letter 
he wrote to Henry Laurens, President of Con- 
gress, spoke of it more modestly. The letter was 
written in English, with which he still strug- 
gled, and ran as follows : 

41 



With Lafayette in America 

« I have received your late obliging favor and 
return you my very sincere thanks for it. If 
there is something to be praised in our late re- 
treat, it is much more owing to the intelligence 
of the officers, to the spirit and good order of 
the soldiers I had the honor to command, than 
to any merit of my own — our detachment was 
a fine one, and with such officers and men as I 
had that day, I schall willingly meet the best 
english troops upon equal terms — there was 
already spent among them a pride, a confi- 
dence, an esprit de corps as could distinguish 
the best part of a veteran army." 

A little over a month after Lafayette's cool 
retreat from Barren Hill under the very nose 
of the British, he took part in a fierce and 
bloody battle in Monmouth County, near Free- 
hold, New Jersey. To see this battle in a series 
of scenes we must first imagine ourselves at 
Valley Forge where, on the 1 8 th of June, Gen- 

42 



Old Battle- Grounds 

eral Washington gets important news. A Mr. 
Roberts, a landholder in the valley, I take it, 
hastens to him with the intelligence that the 
British are leaving Philadelphia. At once there 
is much excitement in Valley Forge. The entire 
camp makes haste to follow, without delay, that 
long train of troops and baggage-vans that steal 
out of Philadelphia. Off they all go, therefore, 
in the hot June weather. Among them are many 
of the officers we have met on former occa- 
sions. General Greene, great man and great 
soldier, is there, serving the army at present as 
quartermaster ; young Hamilton, aide-de-camp 
still to Washington ; and General Lafayette, as 
full of mettle as is his horse, ride by. Among 
the officers we must make the acquaintance 
straightway of a new figure in our tale. Gen- 
eral Charles Lee, lately restored to the Amer- 
ican army by exchange from an English prison 
camp. A strange, sinister figure is this Lee, 
English by birth, but by military service and 

43 



With Lafayette in America 

by travel a citizen of many lands. The army 
have much faith in his ability and welcome him 
back with joy. Lafayette describes Lee's per- 
son in these words : " His features were plain, 
his turn of mind caustic, his feelings ambitious 
and avaricious, his temper uncomplying and 
his whole appearance singular and unprepos- 
sessing." And so, having made the acquaint- 
ance of the new addition to our party, we will 
set off in hot pursuit of the British troops. 

They are plainly making their way across 
New Jersey, planning apparently to go back 
to New York. The American troops follow 
warily about a march behind. At a council of 
war the American generals differed widely as 
to the advisability of attacking this foe. Lee was 
most emphatic in urging inaction. Lafayette 
felt, on the contrary, that it would have been dis- 
graceful to let the enemy trail across New Jer- 
sey unmolested. The majority, however, were 
with Lee. That night Lafayette again urged the 

44 



Old Battle- Grounds 

chief to attack and General Greene and young 
Alexander Hamilton seconded his advice. 

A question next arose concerning the com- 
mand of a certain detachment. By seniority it 
belonged to Lee. When he declined command, 
Lafayette was selected. Instantly, Lee reasserted 
his right, on second thoughts yielded the point, 
but only to change his mind a second time, ca- 
priciously claiming it again. Again Lafayette 
gracefully yielded. The detachment somewhat 
increased will be under Lee, then, with La- 
fayette in a minor role. Lee's responsibility 
was grave, as Washington had determined to 
attack. 

The scene of the battle that is now about to 
rage might be the setting for some gentle rural 
drama. The peaceful country court-house at 
Monmouth, a parsonage and a barn, an orchard 
from which the blossoms have only lately scat- 
tered in the wind. And yet about this court- 
house and about the parsonage men are to meet 

45 



With Lafayette in America 

in deadly grip, their muskets cracking all day 
long under a blistering sky. The day is Sun- 
day, the 28th of June, 1778. A year earlier 
Lafayette had been riding through the States, 
all so new to him, toward Philadelphia. 

The intricacies of the military plan of Wash- 
ington do not, for our purposes, concern us. 
Sufficient it is to say that the division under 
Lee and Lafayette was ordered to set upon the 
British at a certain point ; that after some brisk 
firing, without apparent reason, Lee ordered a 
retreat at a moment when victory seemed not 
uncertain. 

The troops fell back, puzzled and confused. 
Suddenly the news came to Washington that 
the attack had collapsed. What a picture we 
have of him, charging in majesty down upon 
them, speaking to Lee in vigorous terms, stem- 
ming the retreat as he spoke. Accounts of 
Washington's wrath differ, not as to its inten- 
sity, but as to its expression. It is a mooted 

46 



Old Battle- Grounds 

point whether or not he swore at Lee or only- 
spoke to him with severity. The world is rather 
inclined to believe the story that he cried out 
"Damned poltroon!" and to credit even the 
enthusiastic statement of one old general that 
«« he swore like an angel from Heaven." Cer- 
tain it is that Washington made his attitude 
clear, for Lee himself, in a letter written after 
the battle, stated sarcastically that " the thanks 
I received from His Excellency was of a singu- 
lar nature." 

At the inquiry into Lee's conduct that after- 
wards took place, Washington could say calmly, 
" I am not conscious of having made use of 
any singular expressions at the time of my meet- 
ing you, as you insinuate." Doubtless the pat- 
tern of veracity spoke the truth. In the heat of 
battle witnesses grow confused. Still, it is more 
than likely that His Excellency at least looked 
the words " Damned poltroon" as he stemmed 
the retreat that day; for he did stem the re- 

47 



With Lafayette in America 

treat. " He directed the whole," said Hamil- 
ton, " with the skill of a master workman." 
And all the time the sun beat down on both 
armies with a pitiless neutrality. The young 
men in red coats, heavily dressed in good Eng- 
lish wool, staggered forth with parched throats 
and swollen tongues, firing at the ragged young 
men in Continental uniforms, blindly obeying 
orders of unseen forces behind them ; and men 
of both armies dropped dead by the score all 
that long Sunday, some from wounds, some 
merely from the pitiless heat. Their young 
bodies, formed to do the useful work of peace, 
were thrown into hastily dug trenches and 
covered shallowly with earth. 

Among them fell a British sergeant who tow- 
ered to seven feet and four inches. The " high 
sergeant " his fellows had called him. Perhaps 
the shot that laid him low on the field of Mon- 
mouth came from a cannon manned by a strange 
figure. In the early hours of the fight, a robust 

48 



Old Battle- Grounds 

woman had gone to and fro with water to the 
cannoneer who had managed that gun. He was 
the woman's husband, and she braved shot 
and shell that he should not thirst. He had fal- 
len at last, and with the same quiet courage, 
this woman, dressed in a skirt and rough artil- 
lery jacket, aimed that deadly gun on the red- 
coats. Molly Pitcher she was called; Sergea7tt 
Molly Pitcher, by order of General Washing- 
ton, after that day. 

And then at last night came: a hot night 
with a moon. Both British and Americans fell 
on the ground for what repose they could get. 
Washington, spent from his fearful day, spread 
his military cloak on the ground and lay down 
on the hard, dry earth to rest. Beside him, 
sharing the cloak, lay Lafayette. In low tones 
they reviewed the day, Lee's unaccountable 
conduct, their losses, which had been less than 
those of the British, forming some plan for the 
morrow. But with the morning came release 

49 



JVith Lafayette in America 

from conflict, for the British, having little to 
gain by further fighting, had retreated quietly 
in the night. 

Had Washington been able, as he had wished, 
to give Lafayette command of the division that 
was commanded by Lee, the day would have 
been one of decisive victory ; for it is unthink- 
able that " the Marquis " would have ordered 
a retreat. As it was, he bore himself bravely 
through all the day. A fellow officer. Colonel 
Willett of New York, in a letter written after the 
action, said of him : " I have been charmed 
with the blooming gallantry and sagacity of 
the Marquis de Lafayette, who appears to have 
every requisite to become a great general." 

And when these words were written, the 
young Frenchman was not yet twenty-one 
years old. 



CHAPTER IV 

Bethlehem 

LET us leave for a moment the hills and 
J rivers of the States v^here battles rage 
and seek a little town in the hills of northeast- 
ern Pennsylvania where a religious community 
of men and women live in peace and in love. 
They dwell in large, well-built houses of stone, 
the single women in one, the single brethren 
in another, the widows by themselves, the fam- 
ilies in still another group. For the accommo- 
dation of those strangers who pass through the 
town the community maintains the Sun Inn. 
Over the archway under which the carriages 
drive they have lettered the cordial words, 
" Good-bye, come soon again." They call them- 
selves Moravians, or United Brethren. For 
thirty years they have been in America, having 
come from Germany for the pacific purpose 
of converting the Indians. One Christmas Eve, 

SI 



With Lafayette in America 

after prayer, they named their settlement Beth- 
lehem, in honor of the Nativity. So it was that 
the home of a great steel works received its 
name I 

When the war opened, the Moravians asked 
to be excused from military service, and this 
request was granted. The stress of the times, 
however, made it impossible to leave the good 
brethren and sisters in undisturbed pursuit 
of their missionary work. Bethlehem was too 
near Philadelphia not to furnish a tempting 
place of retreat. The well-built, commodious 
houses of the society were too well adapted 
for military hospitals to escape being taken 
over. In the house of the brethren rows and 
rows of shattered forms were laid. Bethle- 
hem overflowed to bursting with refugees 
from Philadelphia, with members of the flee- 
ing Congress, with the sick and the wounded 
soldiers. 

In the diaries of the society the methodical 

52 



Bethlehem 

German brethren recorded these things. To- 
day we can still read this minute record of the 
troubled times in those calf-bound books, pro- 
viding we have eyes for the fine German script, 
sometimes faint with age. 

The Moravians had a good friend in Henry 
Laurens of South Carolina, member of Con- 
gress. Doubtless the brother who made the 
entry in the diary for September 21, 17775 
had his pleasure in noting the fact that <* Our 
friend and protector Henry Laurens of South 
Carolina, with many other notables, arrived. 
They attended our English service. Towards 
evening the sick and the wounded from Bristol 
began to arrive and the influx of strangers be- 
came greater, so that the Sun Tavern could 
not hold them. Among others arrived General 
Woodward, Col. Armstrong and the young 
Marquis de Lafayette with a suite of French 
officers. The last-named gentleman had been 
disabled by a wound received in the battle of 

53 



With Lafayette in America 

Brandywine and had come here for medical 



treatment." 



The Sun Inn was given over to the officers, 
and here it was that Lafayette, with a wound 
in his leg, was carried up the broad stairs and 
placed in the little suite of rooms on the sec- 
ond floor. Near him hovered affectionately his 
aide Gimat, one of the officers who had crossed 
the sea and had journeyed with him from 
Charleston. 

The inn was crowded and noisy and the 
wounded Marquis remained there but a few 
days. He was removed to a private house of 
Moravians the better to be nursed by Sister 
Boeckel and her daughter Leisel. 

It may have been that this plan for Lafa- 
yette's comfort was owing to the solicitation 
of Henry Laurens, for, on September 25, La- 
fayette penned him a note thanking him for 
some service. The English with which he strug- 
gled has its charm : 

54 



Bethlehem 

" dear sir, 

Trouble some it will be to you for ever 
to have been so kind with me, because it seems 
me Now that I became in right by my first 
obligations of disturbing you for my businesses. 
Therefore I take the liberty reposing myself 
upon your friendship about one very great in- 
terest of my heart — " 

And then he goes on to plead with Laurens 
to help him in tracing a packet of letters lately 
arrived from France. He concluded the letter 
with a report of his wound : 

" My leg is in about the same state and with- 
out your kindness would be in a very bad one; 
for my heart is full of all the sentiment of grati- 
tude and affection which I have the honor to 
be with 

" Dear sir, your most obedient servant, 
« the marquis de Lafayette. 
"Bethlehem, 25th September, 1777." 

55 



With Lafayette in America 

In writing to his wife a week later from his 
bed in Bethlehem, Lafayette is careful to be- 
little his injury : 

" But let us speak about the wound : it is 
only a flesh wound, and has neither touched 
bone nor nerve. The surgeons are astonished 
at the rapidity with which it heals; they are in 
an ecstacy of joy each time they dress it, and 
pretend it is the finest thing in the world : for 
my part, I think it most disagreeable, painful 
and wearisome ; but tastes often differ : if a 
man, however, wished to be wounded for his 
amusement only, he should come and examine 
how I have been struck, that he might be 
struck precisely in the same manner. This 
my dearest love, is what I pompously style my 
wound, to give myself airs, and render myself 
interesting." 

He ends the letter : " Adieu, adieu, my dear- 
est life, continue to love me for I love you most 
tenderly." And at this point doubtless the 

S6 



Bethlehem 

tedium of a long day was broken by a visit 
from the devoted Gimat or some one of the 
many officers or members of Congress who 
were constantly passing through Bethlehem. 

The days perforce passed slowly in Bethle- 
hem. There was little that an injured man could 
do except read and write. Lafayette wrote in- 
cessantly — to Henry Laurens asking various 
favors for French officers ; to M. de Maurepas, 
offering to conduct some Americans to the Isle 
of France to concert with individuals an attack 
upon the English factories. He wrote, too, to 
the commander of Martinique and proposed 
to him to make a descent upon the English 
islands under American colors. And while his 
mind was full of such fiery projects, the good 
Moravian brothers lectured him gently upon 
his warlike folly, little knowing that the young 
man who listened to them so courteously was 
planning all the time to set Europe and Asia 
" in a flame." 

SI 



With Lafayette in America 

That the brothers should treat him with the 
greatest kindness and love was only natural ; it 
was Lafayette* s good fortune all his life to in- 
spire such feelings wherever he found himself. 
With his universal consideration for others, his 
bright interest in all about him, he must have 
been a delightful guest. Indeed, tradition likes 
to assert that Leisel, the young girl who helped 
in the care of him, was so enamored of his 
winning personality that she never married. 
This does not seem very likely, however, quick 
as we all are to suspect romance when youth 
meets youth; for Lafayette was three years 
her junior and doubtless talked to her of his 
beloved far-away wife and his little daughter 
Henriette. And yet there is no question that 
the young marquis was a romantic and charm- 
ing personality — even a sober. God-fearing 
Moravian girl might have allowed herself to 
sigh when the room he had so long occupied 
was empty. Moreover, had she ever caught a 

S8 



Bethlehem 

glimpse of those ardent letters Lafayette sent 
to Adrienne, she might have formed a new con- 
ception of conjugal life that was not conducive 
toward acceptance of the Moravian custom of 
selecting mates by lot. And so Leisel Boeckel 
never married — let us make what we choose 
of that fact. 

Before he left the Boeckel roof, Lafayette 
was able to sit up in a chair, a solid chair with 
a foot-rest and comfortable, winged arms. And 
after the sardonic fashion of inanimate things 
this old chair still exists, continuing stoutly to 
serve new generations. Perhaps it was when he 
was able to so far leave his bed that he asked 
some good brother for a book with which 
he might pass away the time. It was like the 
brother to bring the Frenchman, who had 
known the court of Louis XVI, a history of 
the missions in Greenland. It was like Lafa- 
yette to read it through and to express himself 
to that good brother as " highly pleased." All 

59 



With Lafayette in America 

of which the brother recorded methodically in 
his journal. 

But at last the day came for leave-taking of 
litde Bethlehem in the hills. Like a blooded 
horse wild to be in action, Lafayette had been 
held there during the battle of Germantown, 
during the English occupation of Philadelphia. 
He could wait no longer. Though his wound 
was not quite healed and he could not yet bear 
his boot upon his leg, he determined to be off. 
In the hurry of his departure he wrote in Eng- 
lish once again to Laurens ; 

" dear sir, 

"At length I go to camp and I see the 
end of my so tedious confinement. My wound 
(though the skin is not yet quite over) seems 
to me in so fine a way of recovery that I judge 
myself able to play my part in our first en- 
gagement. ... I beg your pardon, sir, for a 
letter which I could not aide myself though I 

60 



Bethlehem 

could wrait it your unhappiness, but I am in 
the hurry of my so pleasant departure. 

« bethlehem for the last time, the Saturday, 
October i8, 1777." 

In tracing Lafayette's footsteps through 
America the path often grows dim. Old sites 
are lost ; old villages have become roaring cit- 
ies ; the very beds of the rivers he crossed have 
changed their courses. But in Bethlehem the 
path grows plain again. We pause before the 
door of the old Sun Inn which, even with its 
modern addition, is still so like the inn over 
whose threshold Lafayette was carried after 
Brandywine. Before its door a dim old sign 
swings still, picturing the early house, with an 
Indian and a soldier proudly pointing to its 
grandeur. Within the archway we can still read 
the house's farewell to all who came: "Good- 
bye, come soon again." Within the door the 

61 



With Lafayette in America 

prints which the house has accumulated through 
the years hang thick upon the wall. Many of 
them must have been there when Lafayette 
dwelt in Bethlehem. He may well have looked at 
that one picturing the waters before Charleston 
with the great winged ships riding proudly at 
anchor. 

Up the broad stairs we go, thankful that 
they have known no change, to that suite of 
rooms Lafayette occupied until the inn grew 
so crowded that he was removed to the house 
of the Boeckels. The house of that good sis- 
ter is no more; a modern store stands on the 
site. But on one of the streets of Bethlehem 
other Boeckels still dwell, descendants of that 
hospitable and kindly family. Within their 
present habitation we find preserved as a family 
treasure the chair in which Lafayette sat during 
those slow days of convalescence. In its winged 
arms we can fancy the tall form of the young 
Marquis bending over the history of the mis- 

62 



Bethlehem 

sions which the brethren asked him to read. As 
we know, the great work of the Moravians was 
the conversion of the Indians. They believed 
in their red brothers and worked long for their 
salvation. During these weeks Lafayette, with 
his ready sympathy, must have listened to many 
tales of the red men, and I like to think that it 
was here that his own love for the Indians first 
was born. For certain it is that from his early 
youth in America to his hale old age when 
he returned for his great tour, Lafayette and 
the Indians were friends. « Kiyala," father, the 
Indians afterwards christened him. And so the 
good Moravians probably had their part in 
widening the sympathy and the understanding 
of the young soldier who fell to their care. 

And now, leaving the house where the old 
armchair is treasured, we must not neglect to 
visit one more street in Bethlehem, for we have 
not seen the town that Lafayette knew unless 
we visit the great community houses in which 

63 



JVith Lafayette in America 

the Moravian sisters and brethren dwelt. Great 
halls they are, built to withstand the ages. 
Stepping into the house of the sisters with its 
strong arches and brick floors we are in an- 
other age. Over these floors, down that rude 
stairway the sisters that ministered to the sol- 
diers of the Revolution passed. Across the 
street still stands the house of the brethren 
where the sick were brought in great numbers 
so that the halls were crowded with their 
wounded or fever-racked forms. Undoubtedly 
if Lafayette could walk on his wounded leg, he 
must have found his way to this hospital before 
he left Bethlehem. 

But those evil days are long past. The halls 
no more resound with the groans and sighs of 
the wounded. To-day the house of the brethren 
has become a school for girls. In the lively 
fancy of these young persons a certain spot on 
the floor of one of the rooms with deeply re- 
cessed windows became for them « the blood of 

64 



I 



Bethlehem 

Lafayette." " The blood of Lafayette is under 
your bed," they would whisper to some new- 
comer in one of the neat dormitories. When the 
spot was painted out, they sighed in their sense 
of deprivation, "We have lost the blood of La- 
fayette." The fact that Lafayette had at no time 
been housed here in no way detracted from the 
girls' pleasure in the story, for they loved to 
cherish even the imaginary sign of the presence 
of that guest who once upon a time came to 
the little town of Bethlehem. 



CHAPTER V 

Valley Forge 

IT is a bitter winter's day in the year 1777. 
Through a blinding snowstorm we can 
make out a wandering city of log huts. Now 
and then we descry men passing from cabin 
to cabin, some of them so poorly clad that we 
are not apt to suspect them of being soldiers. 
Surely they are some vast rabble of raggamuf- 
fins encamped here in the snow between the 
hills of Valley Forge. Inside the huts many 
lie ill. Others stay indoors — excused from all 
duty — from lack of shoes, lack of coats, lack 
of very shirts. One of the officers is put to it to 
make a coat of an old dressing-gown, to shut 
out the icy winds. 

In the house where the commander-in-chief 
is stationed, he and his staff chafe and confer 
as to what is to be done to hold this army 
together until spring; what is to be done to 

66 



Valley Forge 

make plain to Congress that supplies must be 
forthcoming; that interesting as excuses are, 
often good as they are, excuses will not feed 
and clothe the starving and the freezing. The 
army has been forced more than once to for- 
age for food over the country side, tearing 
by force from the country folk live-stock and 
grain. It is work American men do not relish. 

Among the officers that meet and confer at 
at all times with the commander-in-chief on 
these problems, we meet Lafayette, the French 
nobleman, lately dismissed from Bethlehem as 
convalescent. The situation of the army induces 
Washington to dip his pen again and again in 
the ink and pour out his impatience to the 
President of Congress. As his chosen confi- 
dent Lafayette probably heard such denuncia- 
tions against the legislative body at first hand. 

" I do not know," Washington wrote on De- 
cember 2 2, addressing himself to the President 
of Congress, " from what cause this alarming 

67 



JVith Lafayette in America 

deficiency or rather failure of supplies arises, 
but unless more vigorous exertions and better 
regulations take place in that line immediately, 
this army must dissolve." 

A day later he is even more insistent : 

" I am nov^^ convinced beyond all doubt that 
unless some great and capital change suddenly 
takes place in that line this army must inevitably 
be reduced to one or the other of three things; 
starve, dissolve or disperse in order to obtain 
subsistence in the best manner they can." 

And a few weeks later, when the new year 
had dawned with little hope in sight of relief, we 
look in upon Lafayette busily pouring forth his 
own sentiments upon Valley Forge in a letter to 
his wife : 

"What a date, my dearest love, and from 
what a region I am now writing in the month 
of January. It is a camp in the center of woods, 
fifteen hundred leagues from you, and I find 
myself enclosed in the midst of winter. It is not 

68 



Valley Forge 

very long since we were only separated from 
the enemy by a small river ;. we are at present 
stationed seven leagues from them and it is 
in this spot that the American army will pass 
the whole winter, in small barracks which are 
scarcely more cheerful than dungeons." 

And then he explains to her at length his rea- 
sons for lingering here, far from all whom he 
loved, telling her of how the English have de- 
lighted in spreading the report that the French- 
men were to quit the country in disgust and that 
should he carry out their prophecy, many other 
Frenchmen would follow his example. " Gen- 
eral Washington," moreover, " would feel very 
unhappy if I were to speak of quitting him ; his 
confidence in me is greater than I dare acknowl- 
edge on account of my youth ... a peculiar 
circumstance is occurring at this moment which 
renders my presence of some use to him. This 
is not the time to speak of my departure." 

And at this point the youthful Major-Gen- 

69 



With Lafayette in America 

eral sighs and looks out, doubtless on the fall- 
ing snow, as he loses himself in dreams of 
France ; of his wife with a new baby in her arms, 
a baby whom he has never seen ; of her with 
his two children in the beautiful, well-appointed 
palace of the Duke her father; of friends 
everywhere, there and at the court ; and then he 
writes again, on and on, a long letter destined 
to go a long way, concluding it with the fond 
words, " Adieu, adieu. Continue to love me and 
forget not for a moment the unhappy exile who 
thinks incessantly of thee with renewed ardor 
and tenderness/* And then he seals his letter and 
faces another night and day at Valley Forge, 

No, it was no time for a true friend of Wash- 
ington to take even a temporary leave of ab- 
sence. Harried by incompetent civilian support, 
hounded by carping criticism from the ill-in- 
formed or the captious, the General needed the 
sustaining love of every true patriot. And La- 
fayette did not fail him. He was ever at hand 

70 



Valley Forge 

bearing the hardships of the camp, encouraging 
the soldiers by his own endurance, sustaining 
his chief with that high faith that he was to give 
Washington to the end of that great command- 
er's days. 

Down the ages come the voices of the carp- 
ers, the near-sighted folk who wanted imme- 
diate results at any cost, the opinionated who 
implied that left to them the war would be 
quickly won. But the letters of Lafayette echo 
fine ringing notes of high faith in Washington. 
Almost at random we can turn the pages. To 
his wife, to his father-in-law, to Baron von Steu- 
ben, the Prussian officer who had crossed the 
sea to teach the troops Prussian discipline, La- 
fayette's praise is written, as if his pen could 
not touch paper without overflowing with praise 
for his hero. 

" Our general is a man formed in truth for 
this revolution, which could not be accom- 
plished without him. I see him more intimately 

71 



With Lafayette in America 

than any other man and I see that he Is worthy of 
the adoration of his country. ... I admire each 
day more fully the excellence of his character 
and the kindness of his heart. Some intriguing, 
jealous men have endeavored to ruin his reputa- 
tion ; but his name will be revered in every age 
by all true lovers of liberty and humanity. Al- 
though I may appear to be eulogizing my 
friend, I believe the part that he makes me act, 
gives me the right of avowing publically how 
much I admire and respect him." 

The intriguing men of whom the Marquis 
writes in this letter were composed of a small 
faction, banded together either by agreement 
or a natural affinity of ill-will to belittle Wash- 
ington and elevate General Gates, a general who 
had been successful in the Northern campaign. 
General Gates was apparently, perhaps not un- 
naturally, not disinclined to rise at the expense 
of the chief commander. In Congress he could 
count on an alarming number of adherents. 

72 



Valley Forge 

Among them we find the Mr. Lovell who had 
received Lafayette with such coldness and rude- 
ness. 

But our story's purpose does not embrace 
the ins and outs of this quarrel except as it 
touches upon the attitude of Lafayette. It was 
natural that the opposing faction should try to 
win him to their side ; it was natural, Lafayette 
being the man he was, that they should utterly 
fail to do so. General Gates headed the Board 
of War and used his power in an adroit way to 
capture the young Frenchman, penned in the 
dismal confines of Valley Forge, by appointing 
him commander of an expedition into Canada. 
The appointment was one to fiatter and delight' 
a young man longing for action and a chance 
to win glory. But in the midst of his exultation 
Lafayette showed a caution that was born of 
loyalty rather than experience or temperament. 
Noting that Conway, Gates's most active ad- 
herent, was to be one of his aides and that the 



tVith Lafayette in America 

command was not to be under Washington, 
Lafayette took care to stipulate that his good 
friend De Kalb should replace Conway and 
that Washington should take the affair under 
his command. These points granted, he set 
forth for York, Pennsylvania, where the Board 
of War and Congress were sitting. 

The scene that follows has its dramatic ele- 
ment. Let us enter into Lafayette's feelings of 
exultation as he gallops over the roads, leav- 
ing Valley Forge behind him in the cold and 
the snow, his mind fired with the possibility 
of freeing Canada, New France, from the yoke 
of England; of having it acclaimed in the 
streets of Paris, in the court, that he — the son 
of France — had been the liberator of all those 
other Frenchmen in the Northern provinces. 

It is night when he enters the streets of York. 
General Gates, some one informs him, is at 
home. And Lafayette rides to his door. The 
servant informs him that the General is dining, 

74 



Valley Forge 

but ushers him into the room where Gates and 
his chosen friends sit at table. How welcome 
they make him ! How encouraging they are ! 
Defeat in their presence seems a shadow, left 
behind at Valley Forge. Their enthusiasm, in 
the formal, old fashion, finds expression in 
many toasts. Smilingly Lafayette acknowledges, 
we can imagine, those to his country, those to 
the luck of his expedition ; but without a smile 
he notes one omission, an omission that he 
has the honesty and the courage to rectify the 
instant the occasion presents itself The mo- 
ment comes. They wish a toast from him. He 
rises. The smile has faded from his face. He 
is grave — we dare affirm — and his voice is 
steady : 

«* Gentlemen, I propose a toast to the com- 
mander of the United States Armies, His Ex- 
cellency General Washington." 

It is drunk in silence, sullenly enough. The 
boy has made his allegiance clear. 

75 



With Lafayette in America 

February and March pass in slow agony at 
Valley Forge; conditions are little better; all 
the thunderings of Washington bring but tem- 
porary relief in the deadlock that exists between 
state and army. Lafayette is far away in Al- 
bany. Letters arrive from him now and then — 
letters showing bitter disillusionment. The ex- 
pedition into Canada is an impossibility. It 
always had been an impossibility. Its very in- 
stigators had known its chimerical character. 
Lafayette has a boyish horror of the news 
drifting to France that he had failed — a boyish 
belief that he would be the figure of ridicule. 
His great friend, in the midst of many duties, 
soothes him with kind words. Then April 
comes. The sun comes out and smiles on Val- 
ley Forge. The men who have survived take 
heart in spite of the graves they have dug through 
the winter. One April day the young Marquis 
comes back, full of new hope, like April her- 
self. News has been drifting across the sea that 

76 



Valley Forge 

France would come out on the side of the 
Americans. In May the news becomes official. 
Our last picture of Valley Forge is so joyous 
that it well may blot out the winter. Let no 
American ever pause in the valley or look 
down the Schuylkill without bringing to mind 
that here the army celebrated the alliance be- 
tween their country and her great sister across 
the sea. 

Let us mask ourselves as onlookers of the 
countryside, perhaps countrymen who have 
had their cattle and their grain forcibly taken 
from them that very winter by the desperate 
army pressed to forage for its sustenance. That 
is forgotten now. No patriot has room in his 
heart for anything but joy. 

At nine the first cannon booms over the hills. 
The men assemble, being a God-fearing gen- 
eration, before their respective chaplains and 
listen to the official tidings of the great event. 
They must listen, too, to discourses of goodly 

77 



With Lafayette in America 

length. Then throughout the morning at inter- 
vals the cannon thunder. At ten-thirty a second 
cannon rolls out its long peal. The men hasten 
to get under arms. The brigade inspectors 
sharply look them over. The standard has 
changed mightily during the winter. General 
von Steuben — see him over there with his 
decoration from the Prussian Guards on his 
breast — has accomplished much. Now his hour 
has come! The third cannon announces his 
triumph. The army is about to execute a maneu- 
ver. Note the commanding officers, De Kalb, 
Lafayette, Lord Stirling, a German, a French- 
man, and an Englishman, as if to prove that the 
love of freedom is not confined to the native- 
born. Look at the young Marquis. How splen- 
did he is ! You can tell him by his white scarf 
He bears himself like a highly bred horse. The 
whole camp loves him. No, not all. The old 
German Baron is an exception. Von Steuben 
does not share the enthusiasm. He finds La- 

78 



Valley Forge 

fayette willful and conceited, and cannot for- 
give him for joining with others to protest 
that there can be such a thing as too much 
discipline, too complicated maneuvers, serving 
no purpose. Each man contributes much to 
America, but a mutual indifference is evident. 

Listen to that glorious shout from the 
thousands of throats — no haphazard shout, 
Baron von Steuben will have none of that; 
but at a signal a great roar in unison arises: 
"Huzza! Long live the King of France." 

Now comes the roar of artillery again. Thir- 
teen rounds, one round for each of the strug- 
gling States France is going to save, and then, 
"Huzza! Long live the friendly European 
powers." More artillery, thirteen pieces speak- 
ing together, and then, " Huzza for the Ameri- 
can States !" More than Von Steuben's training 
goes into that mighty cheer. 

And now, the review over, the officers re- 
tire to the center of the encampment with such 

79 



tVith Lafayette in America 

ladies as grace the camp, to dine in the open 
air. See the officers approaching, arms locked 
in arms, thirteen abreast, as if to symbolize at 
every turn the magic number of their States. 
The wine flows, the toasts begin. The great chief 
was never in a more mellow mood. With his 
officers he eats and drinks under the smiling 
sky in great accord. Ever at his side is Lafayette, 
his joyous expression changing now and then 
to one of sharp pain as if some memory welled to 
the surface in spite of a stern determination to 
show nothing but jubilation. Washington and 
his close friends know the cause of that look. In 
the midst of the great rejoicing of these days 
news has come to Lafayette that his first-born 
little daughter is dead. In far-away France his 
« dear heart," his Adrienne, must bear this bitter 
grief without the comfort of his arms! 

" The loss of our poor child," he wrote to 
her, " is almost constantly in my thoughts ; this 
sad news followed immediately that of the 

80 



Valley Forge 

treaty; whilst my heart was torn with grief, I 
was obliged to receive and take part in expres- 
sions of public joy. Embrace a million times 
our little Anastasia. Alas ! She alone remains 



to us." 



Then as he sits at the table with that same 
active imagination that pictures with such ag- 
onizing detail his young wife's grief, he sees 
another grief-stricken soul. Each roll of the 
cannon all that morning long, he cannot for- 
get, has been a dire signal for a French pris- 
oner, a soldier who has been condemned to 
death. Lafayette and De Kalb exchange glances. 
They look at Washington. Then they ask as a 
boon the life of the Frenchman. Washington 
on this day can refuse France nothing. He 
grants what her son asks. The man shall not 
die. Moreover, all the other prisoners shall be 
pardoned with him. I think we catch Von 
Steuben frowning. And so the union of France 
with America is marked with an act of mercy. 

8i 



With Lafayette in America 

How the prisoners* hearts must have leaped 
with relief. Their feeble huzzas echo through 
the valley not to be forgotten. 

The day is over. The commander-in-chief 
with his suite rides to his quarters. A quarter 
of a mile away he looks back, and his party 
huzza and Washington waves his cocked hat. 
It is good to think of him in this happy mood. 
Valley Forge perhaps dreams of it through the 
ages. 



CHAPTER VI 

France — An Interlude 

AMONG the many beautiful letters that 
. Lafayette was constantly writing to his 
wife and sending across the sea by whatever 
chance presented itself, there is one that must 
have made the bright eyes of the little Marquise 
shine with joy, that must have been read and 
re-read threadbare, to her parents, to her sis- 
ters, perhaps playfully to the baby Anastasia. 
Its contents may even have been breathed into 
the ear of Marie Antoinette, the Queen. For 
in this letter, written from America on the 
15th of September, 1778, he holds out the 
promise of a visit home. 

Let us imagine ourselves behind the chair 
of Adrienne Lafayette, the joyful, trembling 
Marquise, in the great palace of her father 
in Paris, as she skips over the paragraphs 
that deal with the war in America, to dwell 

83 



With Lafayette in America 

slowly and lovingly on those sentences that 
speak of Lafayette's possible return and on 
the words that breathe his love for her and 
Anastasia. 

" The war which would ordinarily separate 
us is likely to bring us together again '' ; that is 
the first word on the subject, and the bound- 
ing of her heart begins. 

*« . . . So, even whilst you are reading this, 
tell them to bring you pen and paper and send 
me word quickly by every possible means that 
you still love me and that you will be very 
happy to see me again. 

"... I have been in hopes that the declar- 
ation of war would take me to France immedi- 
ately; for besides all the ties of affection that 
are drawing me toward those I love, my devo- 
tion to my country and my great desire to 
serve her are also very strong motives. 

"... Now, however, the happy moment is 
approaching, my dear heart, when I shall be 

84 




LA MARQUISE DE LAFAYETTE 



France — An Interlude 

with you again, and the coming winter will see 
me happily reunited to those I love." 

And he writes of little Anastasia, whom he 
has never seen ; 

" Teach her to love me by loving you." 
The letter concludes : " Adieu, my dear heart. 
When shall I be permitted to see you and not 
to leave you again ; to make you as happy as you 
will make me ; to ask your pardon on my knees " 
— no need to do that, as he well knows ; she has 
forgiven him over and over again for going to 
America. From the very first day of his de- 
parture she has held her head high among her 
kindred and let no one among them cast blame 
upon him for leaving her in an hour when she 
needed him most. And now when he is coming 
home covered with glory — ! She loses herself 
in joyous reflections. How precious she finds 
those last words of this wonderful letter : "Adieu, 
adieu I We shall not be separated now for very 
long." 

85 



JVith Lafayette in America 

Four long months were to pass, however, 
before Lafayette could set sail for France after 
receiving permission from General Washington 
and a furlough from Congress, to be extended 
at his pleasure. 

When we see him again it is in the month of 
January, in Boston Harbor, on the ship Alliance 
which Congress has put at his disposal. He has 
lost his fine healthy color, he does not walk as 
steadily as usual. The friends who bid him fare- 
well, especially his good doctor, are somewhat 
solicitous about him, for he has lain very ill of 
a fever at Fishkill for some months ; indeed, it 
has been reported generally in the army that he 
is dying. But the Madeira wine of Boston, he 
declares, has restored him to health ; in any case 
the fever is over, to be succeeded by the fever 
of departure that rages in his veins. 

The wind blows gently ; surely the great sails 
will soon fill and they can be off. But there are 
many delays. Boston is a good place — Lafa- 

86 



France — An Interlude 

yette has always testified to that — but France 
is a better. He cannot wait to depart, now that 
his going is assured. Boston has been most hos- 
pitable. Dr. Cochran, the good physician who 
has traveled with him from Fishkill and seen 
him on board the frigate, has had great pleasure 
there, dancing and singing at the assemblies 
most charmingly. Nevertheless, assemblies or 
no assemblies, Lafayette will be off, more eager 
to return than he was to come. 

He employs the time of delay in a last letter 
to General Washington, expressing affection 
with a frankness that the young American offi- 
cers would have found impossible — a frank- 
ness to which Washington, cold as he is reputed 
to be, always responds. 

"To hear from you, my most respected 
friend, will be the greatest happiness I can feel. 
The longer the letters you write, the more blessed 
with satisfaction I shall think myself' And then 
his mind dwells on his general and all they have 

87 



With Lafayette in America 

been through together. His love for America 
and her cause wells in his heart. After all, he 
will not stay long in France. " How happy, my 
dear General, I should be to come next spring," 
he adds, his mind already planning a return. 

And then he remembers that his general 
may well wish to know something of his health, 
Washington having shared in the general alarm 
for his recovery at Fishkill. With true French 
courtesy he thus words his reassurance : " My 
health is now in the best condition and I could 
not remember I ever was sick were it not for 
the marks of friendship you gave me on that 
occasion. . . . Farewell, my most beloved Gen- 
eral, it is not without emotion I bid you this 
last adieu, before so long a separation.'* 

This was on January 5 , but still the frigate 
lies at anchor. Five days later Lafayette opens 
his letter to His Excellency and adds a line; 
and this time he ends, "Adieu, my dear and 
ever beloved friend, adieu." Next day the sails 

88 



France — An Interlude 

are actually hoisted and again Lafayette opens 
his letter and adds a few words more. 

"I hope your French friend will ever be 
dear to you ; I hope I shall see you again and 
tell you again with what affection and respect 
I am forever, my dear General, your respectful 
and sincere friend, 

** Lafayette." 

And this time, the sails filling with wind, 
Lafayette is actually off. 

How Washington must have smiled as he 
read, in amusement and fond recollection of 
his " French friend." I dare say not even his 
worthy lady, Martha Washington, had ever 
written to His Excellency with such abandon 
and ardor. 

Voyages were serious matters in those days. 
Lafayette did not see his native shores until 
February i 2 when he landed at Brest. The 
ship's captain had faced a mutiny on the way 

89 



JVith Lafayette in America 

over. He had not been able to find a proper 
crew and had been obliged to take what riff- 
raff he could get. But again the spirit that 
watched over Lafayette saved him by a bare 
chance from being given up by the mutineers to 
the English. The English were not to catch him 
then or later, and he lived through that chance 
as he had lived through the fever at Fishkill, to 
return to his country, his King, and his wife. 

His country gave him a great welcome. 
America was the fashion. France was now the 
ally of that struggling land. Wherever the 
young man went, the people crowded to wel- 
come him. His King, though Lafayette had left 
France against the royal order, could not do 
less than welcome him too, though the welcome 
had in it something of censure, mildly diluted, 
and the culprit was ordered imprisoned for one 
week — in the palace of his father-in-law. Hotel 
de Noailles. 

As for the gentle jailer there, Adrienne La- 

90 



France — An Interlude 

fayette, her husband's coming from America 
was the great moment of her pure and beauti- 
ful life. Long after, when she lay dead, La- 
fayette wrote to a friend that in her last delir- 
ium she was constantly imagining that she lived 
through these days again and that she kept re- 
minding herself that she must not show her 
beloved how great was her joy at his return, 
for fear of wearying him ! With all the will in 
the world, I think that noble and gentle soul 
could not have concealed from one, so glad to 
feel the assurance of her love, the satisfaction 
she felt in his presence. 

And so for a week he dwelt captive in the 
Hotel de Noailles. But even here, in this gen- 
tle custody, Adrienne Lafayette paid the pen- 
alty of having married a man born to be a 
public favorite. Callers were constantly appear- 
ing at the palace, and she must share with the 
world the man who united two continents. 

Every honor was paid him. The Queen gave 

91 



TVith Lafayette in America 

him several audiences, the King gave him com- 
mand of the royal dragoons ; at the theater any 
reference that might be construed to mean La- 
fayette was w^ildly cheered. These lines from 
the tragedy «* Gaston and Bayard " were thought 
to describe the young hero with such fidelity 
that Marie Antoinette copied them in her own 
fair hand : 

" Why talk of youth 
When all the ripe experience of the old 
Dwells with him ? In his schemes profound and cool 
He acts with wise precaution and reserves 
For time of action his impetuous fire. 
To guard the camp, to scale the leaguered wall 
Or dare the hottest of the fight, are toils 
That suit the impetuous bearing of his youth; 
Yet, like the gray-haired veteran, he can shun 
The field of peril. Still before my eyes 
I place his bright example, for I love 
His lofty courage and his prudent thought. 
Gifted like him a warrior has no age." 

The command of the dragoons soon took 
Lafayette from Paris. We find his letters back 
to America headed <* St. Jean d'Angely " and 

92 



France — An Interlude 

" Havre." He was in constant touch with the 
great political leaders of France, begging them 
to send troops to America, asking for money, 
conferring with the American representatives 
and regretting that a factional dispute split 
them even here in France. He was called upon 
on every hand as the man who knew the whole 
American situation best and could best advise 
what part France should play in her destiny. 
It was a busy year in France, with small time, 
I should think, to spend in the Hotel de No- 
ailles with those who had waited and watched 
for his coming. 

When it was finally decided to send troops 
to America, there was some thought of giving 
the command to Lafayette, but in the end it 
was decided that an older man, high in rank 
in France, should be at the head of the troops 
— no other than the Comte de Rochambeau. 

But with all this multiplicity of interests, 
Lafayette found time for his usual courtesies. 

93 



With Lafayette in America 

He wrote a charming letter to Laurens, Presi- 
dent of Congress, telling him of the welcome 
France had given after he had been brought 
<« by your attentive goodness " safe to his " na- 
tive shore." And he gave the credit to Congress 
for his royal welcome, on account of the letters 
in his commendation they were pleased to write. 
No wonder Congress, in these troubled days, 
when so many were prolific in their criticisms, 
loved the man who was so genuinely grateful 
for the courtesy shown him. 

Crowded as Lafayette's days were, he made 
time for a letter to his good friend. Dr. Coch- 
ran, that accompanied a present of a watch. 
" My health, dear Doctor, that very health you 
have almost brought back from the other world, 
has been just as strong and as hearty as pos- 
sible. As during my fit of illness the watch I 
then had was of great service to you for feel- 
ing the pulse, I thought such a one might 
be convenient, which I have entrusted to 

94 



France — An Interlude 

the Chevalier and I beg leave to present you 
with." 

There were, of course, letters to Washington, 
in one of which Lafayette confided to his 
general that Ireland "is a good deal tired of 
English tyranny. I, in confidence, tell you, that 
the scheme of my heart is to make her as free 
and independent as America." And he tells his 
general also that the quarrels of the factions 
at home have a bad efi'ect on the other side of 
the water. "For God's sake keep them from 
disputing together." 

"I have a wife," he adds, "who is in love 
with you, and her affection for you seems to me 
to be so well justified that I cannot oppose my- 
self to that sentiment of hers." And with the 
" highest respect, with the most sincere and ten- 
der friendship that ever human heart has felt," 
Lafayette closes his letter. 

France had various plans for attacks on Eng- 
land and Lafayette was stationed at Havre while 

95 



JVith Lafayette in America 

one of these was brewing. The attack was not 
made, but we must pause at Havre long enough 
for a very pleasant occasion. The grandson of 
Franklin comes to present to Lafayette the 
beautiful sword Congress had ordered Franklin 
to have made as a tribute of their regard. The 
letter of the old Philadelphia printer that accom- 
panies the gift is a graceful one. The sword has 
been made in France and Franklin can say of 
its workmanship, therefore, ** By the help of the 
exquisite artists of France, I find it easy to ex- 
press everything but the sense we have of your 
worth, and our obligations to you for this, fig- 
ures and even words are found insufficient." 

And Lafayette, looking with a young man's 
delight upon the devices that represented the 
battle-fields where he had figured, could say, 
with a fine modesty, " In some of the devices I 
cannot help but finding too honorable a reward 
for those slight services which, in concert with 
my fellow soldiers and under the God-like 

96 





SWORD PRESENTED TO LAFAYETTE BY THE CONGRESS OF THE 
UNITED STATES 



France — An Interlude 

American hero's orders, I had the good fortune 
to render." 

Then, characteristically, he does not forget 
to make mention of the grandson of Franklin 
who had brought the sword and to gratify the 
grandfather by assuring him that " the polite 
manner in which Mr. Franklin was pleased to 
deliver the inestimable sword lays me under 
great obligations to him and demands my par- 
ticular thanks." 

And so the year passed away. Lafayette had 
said in the letter which promised his wife this 
visit that he looked forward to the hour when 
he should be permitted to see her and not to 
leave her again. But that was not to be. Amer- 
ica pulled too hard at his heartstrings. He had 
gone too far to be content to sit idly in France 
hoping for some engagement against England 
nearer home. Therefore he left his native shore 
once again for America on March 14, 1780, 

97 



With Lafayette in America 

his heart bounding within him at the great piece 
of news he was authorized to carry to his com- 
mander-in-chief — that of the sure coming of 
French troops to America under Rochambeau. 
Congress had thought best not to solicit troops 
of France, owing to the national jealousy they 
believed sure to be aroused, but Lafayette dar- 
ingly disobeyed their injunctions feeling sure 
that by the time the troops could arrive, Con- 
gress would see the wisdom of his act. Such 
proved to be the case. It must have taken cour- 
age on the part of so young a man to set his 
judgment against that of the legislative body. 
On the 2 6th of April, Lafayette lay on board 
ship in Boston Harbor once more. He could 
hardly wait to notify Washington. Even before 
landing he wrote a letter which began, ** Here 
I am again, my dear General, and, in the midst 
of the joy I feel, in finding myself again one 
of your loving soldiers, I take but the time to 
tell you that I came from France on board a 

98 



France — An Interlude 

frigate which the King gave me for my pas- 
sage." On the 2 8 th he landed and was borne 
by the joyous crowd to the house of John 
Hancock. 



CHAPTER VII 

Two Young Men 

ON a certain September evening during 
the occupancy of New York City by the 
British an English officer pleasantly entertained 
General Clinton and his staff in a house that 
stood at what is now Thirty-fourth Street and 
Second Avenue. 

Among the guests was one of unusually 
pleasing address and person, a favorite with 
Clinton, who delighted to shower him with fa- 
vors. This was Major John Andre, a young 
man in his twenty-ninth year. During the pe- 
riod when the British had occupied Philadelphia 
the Tories had known him well. They had 
laughed at his witty compositions and admired 
his sketches and his singing. The ladies had 
declared there was no more charming man in 
the army, while the men had acknowledged that 

lOO 



Two Toung Men 

his social gifts in no way detracted from his 
manly and upright character. 

On this September evening, as usual Andrews 
gifts were in demand. As we look in upon the 
company we find him singing a popular drink- 
ing-song of the day with such emotion that 
passers-by — even good Americans — listened, 
we can imagine, with pleasure to the fresh young 
voice : 

" Why, soldiers, why 
Should we be melancholy, boys ? 
Why, soldiers, why 
Whose business 't is to die ? " — 

the singer carols, and doubtless as he sings, if 
his mind lingers on the words, he pictures him- 
self on the battle-field pursuing the rebellious 
subjects of King George with fearless courage. 
If he sees Death at all, he sees that grim figure 
with laurel in his hand. 

Likely enough, after the manner of soldiers, 
however. Death is the last thing in Andre's 
thoughts. Much more likely his mind is drift- 

lOI 



With Lafayette in America 

ing idly noting the company, the smiles of his 
general, dwelling one moment on his family in 
England — a mother and sister — the next on the 
adventure he is soon to undertake for Clinton 
up the river that is flowing by them to the sea. 

On this same September evening another 
young man also attends his general ; and he also 
is well beloved. These other two have no minds 
for song; nor have they time for idle, happy 
evenings. They ride to Hartford to meet Comte 
de Rochambeau, commander-in-chief of the 
French troops lately landed in America. And 
the two riders think always of but one thing — 
how to rid the land of the British whom we have 
just left in New York City. 

There is a rough resemblance between Clin- 
ton's favorite and the young man who rides 
with Washington. Both have come from a so- 
phisticated older world, both have grace of man- 
ner, both are courteous to superiors and civil to 
inferiors, both are brave and ambitious and are 

102 



Two Toung Men 

eager to distinguish themselves. Bothlookupon 
their respective generals with love and admira- 
tion. 

At King's Ferry, Washington and his suite 
cross the river. Here they are met by a bold- 
faced, strong-featured officer with a decided 
limp, who presents various papers to Washing- 
ton. The party all know this officer for Gen- 
eral Benedict Arnold, hero of Saratoga, present 
commander of Fort Putnam at West Point. By 
him the Marquis de Lafayette sends greetings 
to Mrs. Arnold, the beautiful girl who had not 
long since become Arnold's second wife. The 
party promise to stop, on the return from 
Hartford, at Arnold's quarters on the Hudson 
and examine the fortifications. 

And thus for Andre, favorite of Clinton, and 
for Lafayette, trusted friend of Washington, 
passes the 1 8th of September, 1780. 

It is the 20th of September. Two days have 

103 



With Lafayette in America 

passed since we saw General Washington and 
his party gallop by to Hartford; two days 
since we heard Andre sing his drinking-song. 
In the darkness of the autumn night we can 
distinguish little even on the wide expanse of 
the Hudson flowing past West Point on its 
way to New York and the sea. But as the night 
lightens on the river the dim outline of a British 
vessel can be discerned, anchored a little past 
the point where it is safe for enemy craft to 
venture. Close to the shore below the bluffs a 
rowboat hovers. Two sullen-faced men lean on 
their oars ; a third, a man of gentlemanly as- 
spect, watches the gathering light with anxious 
eyes. If any one in the countryside should see 
him there, he would be recognized as Joshua 
Smith, a well-to-do lawyer of Haverstraw, a 
friend of General Arnold. 

When day breaks Smith climbs the bank 
and, parting the boughs of a clump of fir trees, 
announces to two men who whisper there that 

104 



Two Toung Men 

it is high time that the conference should come 
to an end; whereupon, after a moment^s dis- 
cussion, these two, one of whom wears the 
Continental uniform, decide to accompany 
Joshua Smith to his home and finish there 
whatever business they have in hand. At the 
summons of the man in Continental uniform, 
a negro servant waiting at a distance brings 
forward horses and the party mount and ride 
up the river. The youngest of them, it is no- 
ticed, is completely covered in a surtout cape. 

At a certain point a sentry challenges them: 
"Congress," the man in blue coat and white 
breeches answers, and perhaps his brow clouds 
finding "Congress" a bitter word, that body 
having used him ill. The man in the cape 
starts perceptibly as if realizing for the first 
time that he is within the American lines. 

Upon reaching Lawyer Smith's house the 
two guests are hurried to an upper chamber 
where Smith himself serves them soon after to 

105 



With Lafayette in America 

breakfast. By the light that now floods the 
world we recognize one as Major Andre, the 
singer at Clinton's party, the other as General 
Arnold, whom we know by his limp and his 
uniform. What strange fortune brings these 
two together in the upper room of Smith's 
house? From the window the Vulture, the 
British ship, can still be seen lying daringly at 
anchor. It is from this ship that young Andre 
was conveyed to shore the night previous. As 
there was no flag of truce to cover his coming, 
there will be none to carry him back. Night 
must drop again over the world before the boat- 
men dare approach that black bulk. And then 
from one of the upper windows the man who 
has ventured within the lines sees an appalling 
sight. The Vulture is on fire. A little four- 
pounder cannon has done the work, pounding 
away from the shore like some terrier that de- 
fies a mastiff'. Whether by this time General 
Arnold is on his way back to his own quarters, 

io6 



Two ToungMen 

we do not know. Accounts differ. Wherever 
he is, whether at that upper window with An- 
dre or halfway down the road, he may well 
share the alarm of his guest, for the Vulture is 
rapidly retreating down the river leaving the 
problem of the guest's return to be solved as 
best it may. 

The day that passes for Arnold at West 
Point, for Lawyer Smith and Andre within the 
house, drags out its slow length. In Hartford, 
on the contrary, after the capricious manner of 
time, the hours go by swiftly. Honorable men 
look into each other's eyes. Rochambeau meets 
Washington. His suite crowd forward to have 
a look at the great hero of America. They feel 
his majesty and his stately charm, but pro- 
nounce him cold and suave. Lafayette is in 
his element. His countrymen meet his adopted 
brothers. His passionate love for the French 
cannot be mistaken. His infatuation with Amer- 
ica seems equally intense. Washington looks 

107 



JVith Lafayette in America 

on him with great kindness. To Rochambeau 
he is " a dear son whom he loves and will con- 
tinue to esteem till his latest breath." And now 
as the American General and the French Gen- 
eral talk together, Lafayette acting as interpre- 
ter, we shift our scene back once again to the 
Hudson. 

Once more we are at the house of Lawyer 
Smith, the time being twilight. Suddenly the 
door of the house opens and the host walks 
forth accompanied by a young man of military 
carriage, clad in civilian clothes, wearing, to be 
exact, a maroon-colored coat and a beaver hat. 
Within the breast of the maroon-colored coat 
the man clutches a paper signed by Arnold 
entitling " John Anderson " to pass the sen- 
tries, and this slip of paper is all that stands 
between Andre and death. He does not sing 
now ; the smiles have long since fled his face. 
With the poignant regret that so often fol- 
lows swiftly upon impulse, he recalls that Clin- 

io8 



Two ToungMen 

ton had forbidden him to don disguise or to go 
within the lines and he sighs, remembering 
that but for his eagerness to succeed in the 
task he had undertaken, he would at that mo- 
ment have been comfortably dining on the 
ship. 

We have no space to follow the ride of An- 
dre and Smith down the river. We can only- 
pause at that place where Smith deems it safe 
to turn back to his village and bid his charge 
Godspeed. It was on the edge of " no man^s 
land," the neutral country devastated first by 
one army, then by the other. Across this des- 
olate area Andre starts, map in hand. Mean- 
while Lawyer Smith rides back, dining at Fish- 
kill, where he comes upon General Washing- 
ton and his party, returning from Hartford. 
Whether or not Smith's appetite was good on 
that night history does not say. 

The next day at noon Washington and his 
party make their way toward West Point for 

109 



With Lafayette in America 

the promised inspection of the fort. When 
they have almost reached their destination, 
Washington turns aside to show Lafayette some 
fortifications on the other side of the river. 
When Lafayette demurs that this delay w^ill 
make them late for the Arnolds' breakfast, 
Washington smiles and says, "You are all in 
love with Mrs. Arnold," and keeps to his pur- 
pose. Two of his aids, one of them being 
young Alexander Hamilton, he dispatches to 
Arnold with apologies. 

In their interest in the fortifications that 
guard the Hudson how unsuspecting the party 
are of the scene that has so lately been enacted 
on its banks. The waters give no hint of the 
midnight meeting in the firs, no hint of that 
hazardous ride of Andre's in his maroon-colored 
coat and beaver hat, nor do the party know that 
a person so dressed has been arrested on the 
edge of Tarrytown by three honest lads who 
have turned him over to the nearest officer to- 



I lO 



Two Toung Men 

gether with incriminating papers found upon 
his person. 

Even had such news drifted to them, Wash- 
ington and his party would have been far from 
suspecting that the handwriting of the papers 
was Arnold^ s own and that he purposed to sur- 
render Fort Putnam to the enemy. How rap- 
idly they would have wheeled about, one and 
all, could they have dreamed that even as they 
loitered Arnold had been stupidly informed of 
Andre's arrest by the officer to whom the pris- 
oner had been surrendered and that this traitor 
had fled from his own table, leaving Washing- 
ton's messengers to breakfast as they might. 

About noon Washington, with Lafayette and 
the others, rides up to the Robinson house, 
Arnold's headquarters. No welcome awaits 
them. Washington is informed instead that 
Arnold has been called to West Point and that 
Mrs. Arnold is indisposed. Later they ride to 
West Point and neither is there welcome for 



III 



With Lafayette in America 

His Excellency and his party here. The officer 
in charge greets them with many apologies ; had 
he known of their coming, he explains, things 
would have been different. The fort is thinly 
manned. Lately it appears General Arnold has 
withdrawn troops for one reason or another. 

At four o'clock Washington and his group 
ride back to the Robinson house and then the 
whole story breaks upon him. Letters await him 
from the officer who received Andre, as well as 
the papers found on Andre's person. There is 
no doubting the evidence of Arnold's black 
guilt. Every incident since morning points 
to its truth. " Gentlemen," asks Washington 
tensely, " whom can we trust now?" 

The sickening disclosure arouses Lafayette to 
a fury of resentment such as we have never seen 
him in before. At the time of Charles Lee's trial 
he had congratulated himself that he had been 
in a position at Monmouth to know so little. 
Now he would be glad to pinion Arnold with 

H2 



m\ 



Two ToungMen 

his own hands and bring him back to justice. 
He hopes that Arnold will be captured and 
hanged. He hopes that Andre will also be 
hanged, he being " a man of influence in the 
British army and whose very distinguished and 
social rank will act as a warning to men of less 
degree." He hopes — nay, he believes — that 
Arnold will have the grace to blow out his brains 
upon his arrival at New York. He overflows 
with apologies for the treason of Arnold to the 
Chevalier de la Luzerne, Minister from France, 
whom he begs not to suppose that such deeds 
are common in the American army, and he asks 
the Chevalier to remember that this is the first 
atrocity of the kind ever heard of in the army, 
declaring that he would give anything in the 
world if Arnold had never shared the army's 
labors. Throughout this impassioned letter La- 
fayette uses the words " our army," " our la- 
bors," as if in the hour when his adopted coun- 
try was in most need of friends he would wholly 

113 



With Lafayette in America 

identify himself with her. How endearing his 
fierce resentment, his hot loyalty, must have 
been to his heartsick chief I 

Andre and Smith were respectively brought 
to the Robinson house before they were more 
securely imprisoned. Smith complained at his 
trial that he had been treated " with acrimoni- 
ous severity and malignant bitterness " by the 
Marquis. Doubtless this was so, and the French- 
man's manner would have been still more se- 
vere had he guessed that Smith, with legal 
cunning, was to manage to clear himself; that 
Andre alone of the three conspirators was to 
pay the price. 

In the surging hours that were to pass for 
all under the Robinson roof, we must not forget 
the gallantry and the tenderness Washington, 
Lafayette, and Hamilton were all to show to- 
ward Mrs. Arnold, whom they soon discovered 
had been thrown into a state of frenzy by her hus- 
band's hurried confession. Washington found 

1 14 



Two ToungMen 

time to visit her bedside and to ask for cour- 
tesy and consideration for her on the journey it 
was planned she should make to Philadelphia. 
Hamilton and Lafayette both went to her, 
bending over her girlish form where she lay 
prone clasping her infant child to her heart, while 
they assured her of their brotherly protection. 

"We are certain,'^ Lafayette wrote, "that 
she knew nothing of the plot." 

But there were bad days yet to be passed 
through by all of them. Arnold was safe. Of 
that they were but too certain. Justice must pass 
sentence on Andre alone. Andre's trial took 
place in the meeting-house of the Dutch village 
of Tappan on the western bank of the Hudson. 
The case was clear. The law was clearer. The 
prisoner had entered the lines secretly, had been 
found in disguise with incriminating papers in 
his boots. The prisoner denied nothing, made 
no thin pretense, as his British friends tried to 
do for him, that he had come into the lines 

IIS 



IVith Lafayette in America 

under a flag of truce. He faced the court 
bravely, with a grace and a manliness that melted 
all hearts, confronting General Greene, who 
was President of the Court of Inquiry, the five 
Major-Generals, of whom Lafayette was one, 
and the eight Brigadier-Generals, who sat in 
judgment upon him. At the end of the ques- 
tions and the evidence, they took Andre back 
to his prison, a small stone house within a few 
yards of the church. That very day he learned 
his fate. He had been declared a spy and was 
to meet the death of one. 

Alexander Hamilton visited Andre more than 
once. Hamilton was infatuated with Andre's 
character, with the elegance of his mind, with 
the nobility of his attitude. To the written re- 
quest to Washington made by Andre asking 
to meet his death by the guns rather than the 
noose, Hamilton added his pleadings. When 
Washington refused, Hamilton publicly an- 
nounced, in an open letter widely circulated, 

ii6 



Two Toung Men 

that «< when Andre's tale comes to be told and 
present resentment is over, the refusing him the 
privilege of choosing the manner of his death 
w^ill be branded with too much obstinacy." 

On the 2d of October Andre was hanged. 
We have followed Lafayette from scene to 
scene in America. This is one we would gladly 
avoid. The execution takes place at Tap pan. 
Greene and the officers of the Board are 
present, all honest men who have done their 
duty as the law outlined it to them, watching 
gravely as Andre is led forth to die. What a 
triumph he makes of his end ! He moves with 
his usual grace, dressed in the uniform of a 
British staff officer, though without the sash, 
the gorget, sword, or spurs. He has no need 
of spurs now, for Death gallops fast. As he 
passes his friends he bows gravely, pausing 
only at sight of the gibbet made of three 
trees. A cart stands beneath the noose. His 
coffin yawns gruesomely near by. For a mo- 

117 



With Lafayette in America 

ment he hesitates, choking, turning a stone 
over and over with his foot. Then he mounts 
the cart with his murmur of ** It will be but a 
momentary pang." A moment after the man 
with his talents and his graces is gone. Who 
shall say that the world was safer without 
him? 

Washington explained to Rochambeau in 
his letter that " policy required a sacrifice," 
adding that "Andre was more unfortunate than 
criminal." 

" Never did any man suffer death with 
more justice," Hamilton declared, "nor de- 
serve it less." 

And Lafayette, who in his first hot resent- 
ment had so longed to see Andre brought to 
justice, wrote: " Andrd was an interesting man, 
the confidant and friend of General Clinton. 
He conducted himself in a manner so frank, 
so noble, and so delicate that I cannot help 
feeling for him with infinite sorrow." 

ii8 



Two Toung Men 

And so we turn our eyes away from the 
Hudson leaving one young man dead at the 
foot of his gibbet while the other, who by 
strange fortune had witnessed so much of the 
tragedy, goes soberly on his more fortunate 
way. 



CHAPTER VIII 

Torktown 

IT had been in September of 1780 that 
Lafayette had gone with Washington up 
the Hudson and stumbled, as it were, upon 
the tragedy of Benedict Arnold's treachery. 
The young Major-General had witnessed his 
great chief's horror and pain and rage; had 
seen, too, the agony of Arnold's innocent wife ; 
had Kved through the days of Andre's trial, and 
had been forced to sit in judgment upon that 
young man of charm and talent and sign the 
warrant that sent him to the gallows as a spy. 
We may be sure that with Lafayette's loyalty to 
his chief, his chivalry toward women, and his 
naturally tender heart, these events had left 
their scar. When Arnold, through good for- 
tune, escaped his countrymen's rage and ap- 
peared as an officer in the British army, pros- 
perous and unrepentant, Lafayette's heart must 

120 



Torktown 

have burned within him. When the news came 
that Arnold was pillaging Virginia at will, Lafa- 
yette must have rejoiced that he was chosen by 
Washington to go to the Old Dominion with 
some regiments of light infantry, reinforced by 
militia, to do what he could to deal with this 
villain. 

The story of Lafayette's start, with its many 
delays, the story, too, of Washington's various 
changes of plans for the campaign, is a long 
one and beside the purpose of these sketches. 
Let us be content merely to follow Lafayette 
without explanation or delay as he appears and 
reappears for the next few spring and summer 
and autumn months against the background 
of the Old Dominion ; for Virginia, more than 
any other State, shows us our hero at the 
height of his military glory, at the height of 
heroic young manhood; gives us the per- 
fect portrait of the man that America loved. 
Like some splendid young knight, without 

121 



With Lafayette in America 

fear and without reproach, he moves now 
through hurried scenes, so that in fancy we 
may liken the old State, with its towns of Rich- 
mond, Williamsburg, Fredericksburg, York- 
town, and its rivers, James, Chickahominy, 
Rapidan, and York, to the closely woven back- 
ground of some fine old strip of tapestry where, 
among the leafy branches and near the curling 
streams of water, we shall descry many figures 
of young and brave men — ragged, sharp-eyed 
Americans, splendidly arrayed Frenchmen, 
weary-eyed British in their coats of red. The 
figure we shall come upon again and again is 
the one with the flashing hazel eyes, the high 
nose, the red hair (if we catch him without his 
wig), the firm mouth with its youthful, kindly 
curves. *< The Marquis " he is ever to his ador- 
ing troops, and "the Marquis" he shall be 
to us. 

Later, on this great scroll of tapestry we have 
labeled Virginia, we shall distinguish many old 

122 



Torktown 

friends : Von Steuben, young Alexander Hamil- 
ton, Anthony Wayne ; and later still, we shall 
make the acquaintance of a great group of new 
faces — Rochambeau, De Grasse, and the men 
from the army and the fleet of France, assem- 
bling here for this last act of the long fight, like 
the chorus in an opera. Last of all, like the 
hero of the opera, Washington himself will ap- 
pear, towering over and above all others, shad- 
owing even the figure of our young Marquis, 
who has chosen thus to be overshadowed so 
that in this final act of the drama the great chief 
may have all the glory and all the applause. 
And somewhere in the background there are 
British figures with downcast faces and furled 
colors — the shadows in the great fabric we are 
about to examine. 

On the march to Virginia the troops under 
Lafayette were in a sullen humor. They had, 
indeed, little to make them feel jovial. They 
were months behind in their pay ; they were 

123 



With Lafayette in America 

wretchedly clad; they lacked shoes, overalls, 
hunting-shirts, and ammunition ; the roads were 
bad and the rain incessant. These facts alone 
were sufficient to account for the mutinous looks 
they cast at their officers. Added to these trou- 
bles, they now learned that they were bound 
southward, far from what they supposed to be 
the field of action, close to malaria and sicken- 
ing heat. The unity between the States was 
weak. Northern men as they were should pro- 
tect the Northern States, they might argue. 
The South filled them with apprehension. They 
would be far from home and far from news of 
home. Smouldering rebellion broke forth in 
acts of desertion. Men threw down their guns 
and went home. In one night nine of the Rhode 
Island company — the best men Lafayette had, 
who had been in many campaigns — became 
deserters. 

An older man than Lafayette might have 
dealt with his men summarily. A less under- 

124 



Torktown 

standing heart might have pinned his faith to 
court martial and the gallows. But the Marquis 
knew what it was to be far from home, to be 
weary of waiting for letters, to feel the impulse 
to fly back whence he had come ; so he looked 
into the faces of his men, wan with nostalgia, 
sullen and grim with resistance, and impulsively 
he addressed them : They were going, he told 
them, to difficulties and dangers, to face sea- 
soned British troops. He would ask no man to 
follow his lead who dreaded these things. No 
man need desert. Instead let the faint-hearted 
come to him and they should receive passes 
through the lines and be able to wend their way 
back unmolested to take their place with troops 
in winter quarters. 

It was a young man's appeal to young men. 
No military harshness could have worked the 
change these words worked among the disaf- 
fected. Perhaps looking upon him, the troops 
remembered how much this foreign-born noble- 

125 



JVith Lafayette in America 

man had left behind him for the sake of a coun- 
try not his own ; perhaps they only knew that 
they loved him and trusted him and could do 
no less than follow where he led. They gritted 
their teeth, therefore, these boys from New 
England and New Jersey, threw back their 
shoulders and trudged on and on in their worn, 
broken old shoes, with many a look of affection 
toward their Marquis. 

We must pause with them at Baltimore, no 
matter how pressed for time. For at Baltimore 
there was a ball for Lafayette and his officers. 
It would seem that he might have been glad 
enough to forget himself for one evening and 
to enjoy the beauty of the women, the good 
food and the cheer, forgetting the troops that 
waited. But he had no heart to forget. Instead, 
he asked the women who thronged to the ball 
to meet him, thrilling with the hope of being 
sought by him in the dance, for shirts and more 
shirts and for overalls and yet more overalls for 

126 



Torktown 

his men. He asked the merchants for two thou- 
sand guineas to be secured by his personal note, 
that his men might be at least partially paid. 
And to the honor of the fine old city on the 
Chesapeake, the women and the men did not 
fail him. The guineas were produced from 
somewhere, though guineas were scarce enough, 
and the women set to work the next morning 
to stitch and to sew on coarse cloth. A Mrs. 
Poe, more energetic than all the rest, cut out, 
with her swift scissors, five hundred garments. 
The Marquis kept her name in his heart for 
many a day. Patriotic deeds, it seemed, were 
more apt to win the smiles of this gallant than 
ringlets or furbelows. 

And then, the money and the clothes being 
a reality, Lafayette wrote to Congress to receive 
their commendation and endorsement, a skillful 
way to break through endless yards of red 
tape. 

It was April when he left Baltimore and we 

127 



With Lafayette in America 

may pause to remark that April seemed pecu- 
liarly to be associated with the appearances of 
this young man. When hope was darkest at 
Valley Forge, April brought him back from 
Albany with the whispered word that aid was 
apt to come soon from France. In another April 
he had landed again on these shores at Boston 
with the joyous news that France was sending 
men and money. And now in the April of 1 7 8 1 
he was going to Virginia, to repel Arnold's raids 
or to help General Greene in the Carolinas. 
Hope was sure to arrive with him, the omens 
seemed to say, as it had in the Aprils that had 
gone before. 

There were a few groups of Virginia militia 
in the Old Dominion, and there was Von Steuben 
with a handful of troops ready to assist him. 
That was all. On the British side there was Gen- 
eral Phillips, with trained men, and under him 
the traitor Arnold, pillaging and burning the 
stores of his countrymen with more zeal than 

128 



Torhtown 

any native born Britisher could have found it 
in his heart to show. 

There was a race between Phillips and La- 
fayette for the possession of Richmond where 
supplies were stored. Lafayette reached there 
first. General Phillips looked up one April 
morning to find the Americans there, en- 
trenched. He flew into a rage, they told La- 
fayette, and cursed the Frenchman and his luck. 

And then Lafayette had his reward for quell- 
ing the mutiny, for providing for the needs of 
the troops, for getting them somehow to Rich- 
mond ; for a letter came from the North from 
the great chief, containing precious words of 
commendation. 

" For my own part, my dear Marquis," 
wrote Washington, " although I stood in need 
of no new proof of your exertions and sacri- 
fices in the cause of America, I will confess to 
you, that I shall not be able to express the pleas- 
ing sensations I have experienced at your un- 

129 



With Lafayette in America 

paralleled and repeated instances of generos- 
ity and zeal for the service on every occasion. 
Suffer me only to pursue you with my sincerest 
wishes that your success and glory may always 
be equal to your merit." 

And now May, a month outwardly so beau- 
tiful in Virginia, had to be faced by Lafayette 
with his inadequate number of troops. Each 
day brought its problem and each day showed 
of what mettle this young commander whom 
Washington had trained and trusted was made. 
In the beginning of May the problem of La- 
fayette and his men was comparatively simple. 
With one thousand men he must keep three 
thousand at bay, protecting to the best of his 
ability the stores; doing enough mischief to 
keep the three thousand from turning their backs 
on Virginia and going to Carolina to help Corn- 
wallis defeat General Greene. Lafayette's warm 
affection for the great General Greene was such 
that he welcomed this task. 

130 




< 

CO 

oi 
w 
h 
oi 
< 
D 
o< 

Q 
< 
w 



Torktown 

« Had I but ships," he wrote, " my situ- 
ation would be the most agreeable in the 
world/' 

Then a new, sharp turn took place in his 
affairs. This campaign in Virginia became sud- 
denly a very serious business. Not even ships 
could have made the situation agreeable. Gen- 
eral Greene in North Carolina, by masterly 
tactics, had succeeded in making it too hot 
there for Lord Cornwallis's comfortable occu- 
pancy. Cornwallis left the Carolinas behind 
him and came to Virginia with his seasoned 
troops to unite with Phillips. If Greene should 
follow he could be subdued with Phillips^s aid; 
if Greene should not follow, Virginia could 
easily be taken and young Lafayette crushed, 
with the result that the Old Dominion would 
be a great wedge between North and South, 
preventing communication. A fine, well-con- 
ceived plan, with nothing against it but an inex- 
perienced young man. 

131 



With Lafayette in America 

«* The boy cannot escape me," Cornwallis 
could comfortably muse. Well might Lafayette 
tremble as the British commander came nearer 
and nearer toward Phillips. Well might Arnold 
smile his wicked smile and congratulate him- 
self that he had chosen, none too soon, the 
winning side. 

Lafayette must have spent many a sleepless 
night. His one hope lay in reinforcements 
from the North, reinforcements that were said 
to be under way from Pennsylvania under 
General Wayne. Scan the roads as he might, 
however, no sight of fresh troops would greet 
his anxious eyes. He could only write for them, 
beg for them, and watch for them as the days 
dragged by. He must be on his guard to avoid 
an engagement with superior forces before 
Wayne came, so he trailed his troops north- 
ward across the State, Cornwallis at his heels, 
Lafayette praying meanwhile that he would 
strike the road Wayne would choose in enter- 

132 



Torktown 

ing Virginia and that he would be able to avoid 
an encounter with the British. 

And so May dragged by and the pupil of 
the great Fabius of America was not overtaken, 
and managed somehow to protect the most 
valuable of the supplies. A will-o'-the-wisp of 
a "boy," Cornwallis might muse, always just 
ahead. 

For the British also May had its incidents. 
General Phillips died of a fever, far from home, 
and good, honest British men must look upon 
Arnold — Arnold the traitor — as chief in com- 
mand It was Arnold, therefore, whom Corn- 
wallis joined at Petersburg one May day. With 
what relish he found Arnold in Phillips's place 
we do not know. Perhaps he mused, as other men 
have done, on the caprice of death in choosing 
her victims, and made the best of the situation. 

On the American side there had been much 
anxiety in May for the young general in com- 
mand in Virginia, but June was kinder and 



With Lafayette in America 

brought hope with its blossoms. On the i oth 
of the month the long-expected Wayne arrived 
with the Pennsylvania troops, not as many as 
Lafayette had hoped for — only about eight 
hundred men — but enough to give the army 
heart. Cornwallis was no longer so eager in 
pursuit. Indeed, by the 15 th of the month he 
had made up his mind not to pursue Lafayette 
farther, and, turning, he retraced his way, his 
fortunes in Virginia ebbing from that hour. 

On the 17th of June, Von Steuben joined 
his forces with Lafayette's and Wayne's, so 
that the American army in Virginia now be- 
came of respectable size in a country where 
the army's numbers were at no time over- 
whelming. How light must have been the 
heart of the young man who was no Fabius by 
nature, when his army now became the pursu- 
ing army, surely though warily trailing Corn- 
wallis as Cornwallis had so short a time since 
trailed him. 

134 



Torktown 

And now for the record of July. There was 
steady marching in this month, with many 
changes of camps, but the marching was all in 
one direction, toward the coast whither Corn- 
wallis seemed to be making his way. The Amer- 
icans were not strong enough to attack him, but 
too strong to be wantonly attacked. There was 
much heat for both armies and much fatigue. 
On the 4th of July there was some diversion. 
The troops paused for some maneuvers and 
for open rejoicing in the anniversary of the 
Declaration of Independence that was as yet 
so green in every one's memory. 

On the 6th there was an unexpected battle 
at Green Spring on the highway between Wil- 
liamsburg and Jamestown, in which the Amer- 
icans came out better than they deserved, for 
they had attacked on the assumption that they 
faced but a rear guard of the British army, only 
to find that the full force of Cornwallis's troops 
awaited them. It had been a ruse of Cornwallis 

135 



With Lafayette in America 

that they should so understand his movement, 
but Wayne's valor, Lafayette's discovery of the 
mistake, and the falling of night saved them. 
The battle once over, they could look at each 
other with new courage, for they had met the 
seasoned troops after all, and had been far from 
overwhelmed. 

Later Tarleton, the dashing British cavalry 
officer, made a raid that cost more than it was 
worth. Then there was more marching and 
again more pursuing. Then the news came that 
the British were embarking from Portsmouth. 
When they were to sail and to what port, the 
Americans could only guess. July ended, there- 
fore, in conjecture. On its last day we have a 
picture of the tired men throwing themselves 
on the ground at night to sleep after a long 
day's march. 

There was a great and a wonderful hope for 
August, a hope that was realized. A French 
fleet of thirty-eight ships of the line, under De 

136 



Torktown 

Grasse came to the rescue of the " rebels." 
America had long hoped for such succor, but 
it had been generally supposed that the fleet 
would go to the relief of New York. It had 
been decided, however, that Virginia was the 
State that most needed aid, and that the Chesa- 
peake would be De Grasse's destination. 

A young man who originally had been none 
too happy to be sent to Virginia, when he be- 
lieved that the great decisive movements of the 
war would take place in the North, became 
suddenly in the highest spirits. His facile pen 
ran over with joy in his letters to his chief On 
the 2 I St of August, Lafayette was sure enough 
of De Grasse's aid to be able to write to Wash- 
ington : 

" I heartily thank you for having ordered 
me to remain in Virginia, and to your goodness 
to me I am owing the most beautiful prospect 
that I may ever behold." 

And now the beautiful prospect grows ever 

^27 



JVith Lafayette in America 

clearer. Each day of late August and early Sep- 
tember is crowded with momentous happen- 
ings. There is something in the closing chapters 
of revolutionary struggle, staged in Virginia, that 
have, as we have said before, a resemblance to 
the last act of a great opera. Lafayette must 
have felt the dramatic quality of the events, for 
he wrote, in his vivacious French, to France's 
Prime Minister when the struggle was ended : 
" The play is over, M. le Comte, the fifth act 
has just come to an end. I was somewhat dis- 
turbed during the former acts, but my heart re- 
joices exceedingly at the last." 

And now let us settle ourselves comfortably 
in our seats and watch the fifth act unravel un- 
til the solemn fall of the curtain. 

The scenes of this act are laid in Williams- 
burg where the Americans are encamped, and 
in Yorktown, that port high on the bluffs of 
the peninsula on the York River where Corn- 
wallis is entrenched. Both Americans and Brit- 

138 



Torhtown 

ish are discovered in a state of expectancy when 
our curtain rises. Cornwallis scans the sea in 
anxious scrutiny, looking in vain for rescue 
from His Majesty's fleet. Lafayette waits, too, 
with glad and certain expectancy for the com- 
ing of the great commander, no other than 
General Washington, who has made a sudden 
decision to mass his strength at this point. In 
company with General Rochambeau and the 
French troops, Washington marches rapidly 
across the States and sails across the bay. The 
allied strength of Washington and Rocham- 
beau is six thousand men. All the world by this 
time knows they are on the march. Philadel- 
phia has cheered them wildly as they passed. 
All the world knows their destination is York- 
town, to catch *« Cornwallis in his mousetrap." 
We would not willingly miss the scene in 
this act of September 14, when Washington 
enters Williamsburg. Virginia must count that 
day as one of her most glorious among rich 

139 



TVith Lafayette in America 

memories. The Marquis de Lafayette, worn 
out from his efforts to be both general and com- 
missary and provide accommodations for the 
three thousand troops De Grasse has disem- 
barked under Saint-Simon, is ill with an ague. 
At three o'clock of that eventful afternoon the 
express messengers arrive to announce that the 
long journey is over and that Washington and 
Rochambeau may be expected any moment. 
At four the royal salute roars its welcome. And 
soon after the visits of ceremony between the 
armies begin. 

The Marquis's joy must have dispelled his 
ague, for we hear of his riding, with his suite 
in attendance, to greet the two great generals. 
Later there is a great dinner, and Lafayette is 
there with his bright face showing among the 
older faces of Washington, Rochambeau, Saint- 
Simon, Von Steuben, and many lesser men. 
What an hour to live through! He is sur- 
rounded on one side by the man he has 

140 



Torktown 

chosen to be his lifers ideal, with many well- 
proved American friends ; on the other by his 
own countrymen who have followed his ex- 
ample, though tardily, and have come to enlist 
their arms against tyranny. Now and then we 
can be sure Washington's eye rested kindly 
upon the Marquis in pride and approbation, 
for it is the " boy " he has trained in his own 
ways who has held Cornwallis in Virginia un- 
til the cords could be tightened. And all the 
time the allies eat and drink and appeal to him 
to play the interpreter, the band is playing 
French opera in a way to make the strictest 
Puritan's blood dance in his veins. Yes, it is 
a great evening, ending all too soon at ten 
o'clock. 

The next day Lafayette bears a letter from 
His Excellency to De Grasse, who is lying ofF 
Cape Henry, and thereupon plans for action 
rapidly mature. 

The allied armies next encamp two miles 
141 



With Lafayette in America 

from Yorktown, creeping warily on their prey. 
The enemy have already, it is discovered, with- 
drawn nearer the town. 

In October the thunder of the guns begins. 
Yorktown is doomed. Cornwallis may look to 
the east, the west, and the north and the south, 
but no hope comes of deliverance. De Grasse 
guards the sea, the allied troops the land. 
Daily his fate becomes more certain. On the 
1 7 th of October the white flag flies from 
Yorktown and Lafayette says gallantly of the 
British defeat : 

" My respect for the talents of Lord Corn- 
wallis gives his capture an additional value to 
my mind. After this attempt what English gen- 
eral will attempt the conquest of America?" 

On the 1 9th the terms of surrender are all 
arranged — terms made purposely humiliating 
to the foe in remembrance of British severity 
to General Lincoln at Charleston. Here they 
come, trooping from their entrenchments, col- 

142 



Torktown 

ors furled, the band playing an old English 
tune well called " The World Turned Upside 
Down." The American soldiers who have 
been playing at sheep and wolf so long with 
the great lord of England, peer eagerly to see 
Cornwallis advance. But Cornwallis pleads ill- 
ness and does not come. Another English gen- 
eral extends the sword of surrender. General 
Lincoln takes it, Washington decreeing that 
thus it shall be, to compensate in some part for 
that generaPs past suffering and humiliation 
through being obliged to surrender his own 
sword at Charleston. 

And now the curtain descends. If we put 
our ears to the ground we can hear the rolling 
applause from the weary thirteen States, for 
with Cornwallis beaten American victory is 
practically assured. 

The American officers are in high spirits, the 
French content. One of the French, American 
by adoption, is smiling, thanking each officer 

143 



With Lafayette in America 

in his command, with the unfailing courtesy he 
has ever displayed. He has lived through great 
days, crowded a lifetime of experience into the 
past five years. Soon he will sail back to wait- 
ing France, to his " dear heart " and his chil- 
dren to whom he is only a name. America will 
wave farewell, vowing an eternal remembrance 
of the youth who defied king and family to 
come to her aid. 



PART II 

The Nation's Guest 



■fy 




LAFAYETTE 
From an engraving after the painting by Ary Schetfer 



CHAPTER I 

New Tork Greets Lafayette 

WHEN Lafayette sailed away to France 
at the close of the Virginia campaign, 
Washington expressed the hope, in a letter of 
farewell, that his " dear Marquis " would have 
a safe return in the spring. But hostilities in 
America being practically at an end after the 
surrender of Yorktown, the spring came and 
went without bringing Lafayette again. When 
peace was signed with England in 1 7 8 3 , it be- 
came certain that he would never return as an 
active commanding officer of the Continental 
army; that thenceforth his adopted country 
could claim him only as an honored guest. 

He came in that role to this country a year 
after the peace, in 1784, being feted wherever 
he went for five brief months. He visited 
Washington at Mount Vernon and they parted 
forever at Annapolis. Lafayette was twenty- 

147 



With Lafayette in America 

seven years old when America, on this occa- 
sion, bade him farewell. Since that parting the 
thirteen States had grown to twenty-four. The 
great Washington had passed away ; the chil- 
dren, the grandchildren of the soldiers of the 
Revolution were the men and women of the 
new day. B^it America had not forgotten her 
idol. In spite of the reputation of republics for 
being ungrateful, the whole land remembered 
Lafayette. Those who had known him in his 
youth longed to see him once again ; those to 
whom he was only a name were eager to look 
upon his face. In 1824 Congress sent him a 
formal invitation to visit these shores and the 
President, James Monroe, seconded this in a 
friendly and informal letter. 

Lafayette accepted the invitation, declining 
only the oiFer of Congress to send a special 
frigate to fetch him. He came, therefore, as 
any other traveler might come, on an Ameri- 
can merchant ship, and was accompanied by 

148 



New Tork Greets Lafayette 

no more imposing suite than that made by his 
son George Washington Lafayette, his secretary 
Lavas seur, and his valet Bastien. 

Let us gaze upon his face as he walks the 
deck of the Cadmus on the July and August 
days he spent on the great sea, and ask our- 
selves if we should know him for the impetuous 
boy that ran away from France on the ship he 
purchased and fitted out forty-seven years ago ? 
At first there seems no trace of that fiery youth, 
but as we look closely the resemblance to the 
young Marquis comes to us now and then, if 
only in the gracious manner in which General 
Lafayette addresses the humblest man on the 
ship. But sixty-seven is not nineteen, that we 
must admit. There is a hint now o{ embonpoint, 
and we more than suspect the necessity for a 
wig. The general's gait is much constrained, 
due, we learn, to the after effects of a broken 
thigh. Americans will love him none the less 
for the limp. Had he not been lame after Bran- 

149 



With Lafayette in America 

dywine? Some old soldiers can remember yet 
how he galloped back to camp from the hos- 
pital at Bethlehem before he was able to draw 
on his boot. He is not so impetuous now. The 
fires of youth die down at last. But there is 
something in his face more precious than the 
old look of fire and dash ; it is an expression of 
habitual benevolence. 

On his early trip across the sea he had 
poured out his sentiments in ardent letters to his 
young wife even when the darkness that safety 
prescribed at night was so thick that he could 
not see the letters he formed. The years have 
robbed him of that beloved companion. There 
is no one now in France to agonize for his 
safety, to count the hours until his letters come, 
welcome as the news of his welfare will be to 
his two beloved daughters, Anastasia and Vir- 
ginia. But his son is with him, the boy who was 
born during Lafayette's furlough in France and 
named for Washington. How proud Adrienne 

ISO 



New Tork Greets Lafayette 

had been to give him an heir! The greater part 
of the inheritance that would have come to this 
heir of the houses of Noailles and Lafayette had 
been confiscated during the French Revolution. 
George Lafayette could never play the role of 
princely benefactor as his father had done. The 
circumstances of the family were modest com- 
pared to the days when Louis XVI was king. 
But enough remained for comfort. The pleas- 
ant country estate of La Grange had been saved 
to them. 

And all over America the people were wait- 
ing for Lafayette. Every schoolboy knew his 
story in a way that was to astonish the secretary, 
Auguste Lavasseur. They knew of his gener- 
osity and his bravery in the American Revo- 
lution ; they knew of the part he had tried to 
play so bravely in the Revolution in France. In 
his own land he had endeavored to play the 
consistent part of trying to win for France con- 
stitutional liberty and had been, for his pains. 



JVith Lafayette in America 

distrusted by radicals and royalists alike. He 
had been obliged to flee the country at last only 
to fall into the hands of France's enemy Austria. 
For five terrible years he had languished in 
prison, sometimes in Austria, sometimes in 
Germany, meeting with all the petty cruelties 
those countries knew so well how to inflict. 
South Carolina knew that story well, for one 
of her citizens, Francis. Kinlock Huger, of 
Georgetown, had made a desperate and ro- 
mantic attempt to free Lafayette. He did not 
succeed and endured imprisonment for his 
pains. Lafayette's release had come later through 
the power of Bonaparte. Perhaps he had ex- 
pected from Lafayette a grateful allegiance and 
a support of his imperialistic ambition; that 
the old lover of liberty never gave him. The 
best he could do was to retire quietly to the 
country in sad silence, longing to see his own 
land win the liberty that had been won by his 
adopted land across the sea. 



New Tork Greets Lafayette 

And now every day brings him nearer that 
adopted land. With his own eyes he is to see 
what the years have brought to her ; is to learn 
for himself whether his youth was well spent 
or not in her service. What a pleasure to visit 
the old scenes with his son, though America is 
not a strange land to George, he having been 
sent, during France's Revolution, to Washing- 
ton by his distracted mother, that divine mother 
who had feared nothing for herself and who 
had voluntarily shared twenty-two months of 
Lafayette's imprisonment. 

And now she is gone, and Washington is 
gone. The two generals who so kindly greeted 
Lafayette, the youth, in Charleston in those first 
pleasant days in that city, Howe and Moultrie, 
will not be there to greet him now. Lincoln, 
who took Cornwallis's sword at Yorktown, has 
long since gone to rest ; Greene, that Quaker- 
soldier who drove Cornwallis out of South Caro- 
lina straight into Lafayette's clutches, is on a 

153 



JVith Lafayette in America 

farther shore than ever the Cadmus will reach ; 
and Wayne — " Mad Anthony Wayne," as the 
soldiers loved to call him — is through with life 
too ; even old Von Steuben has gone his way ; 
and " young Alexander Hamilton,'^ Lafayette's 
nearest contemporary, whom he used to feel 
at liberty to address as «« dear fellow," has come 
to his untimely end in a useless duel. No, Amer- 
ica will not be the same. Perhaps there will be 
few to remember " the Marquis." 

And now, suddenly, the party on board the 
merchant ship Cadmus see land. It is the 1 4th 
of August. Morning will bring the pilot to take 
them in to New York. How will the New York 
of the new century greet the old Lafayette ? 

Morning dawns. The pilot comes on board. 
Soon they can all see the green foliage of Staten 
Island and the white paint of the summer resi- 
dences gleaming through the green. The peo- 
ple run to the shore in great excitement as the 
ship is sighted. The sea about them is covered 



New Torh Greets Lafayette 

with small craft, and Lafayette's secretary is 
surprised at the neatness of American sailors. 
Then the thunder of cannon is heard from Fort 
Lafayette, announcing to the city that the guest 
of the nation is at her doors. How George 
Lafayette's heart must well within him to hear 
that welcoming roar in honor of the noble old 
man by his side ! He may have heard the story 
a thousand times of America's love for his father 
and yet he cannot have realized it as he must 
realize it now. 

And now the New York of 1 8 24 is before 
us, the greatest and richest city in America ; 
consisting, if we count the suburb of Brooklyn, 
of 140,000 souls ! A good and pious city is 
that old New York, for a committee at once 
boards the Cadmus explaining, through the son 
of the Vice-President of the United States, that 
New York asks its distinguished guest to delay 
his entrance into the city until the following 
day, for this being Sunday, the city does not 



TVith Lafayette in America 

wish to break the Sabbath with the celebration 
it has in store for him. 

How gracefully Lafayette consents — how 
graciously he accepts the hospitality offered 
him by the Vice-President in one of the pleas- 
antest houses that line the shore I What a sim- 
ple old New York it is ! The Vice-President, 
Tompkins, receives them cordially, in his shirt- 
sleeves, with an army cap covering his head ! 

The next morning, August i6, the grand 
celebration begins. New York thinks six o'clock 
none too early to escort the visitors with great 
ceremony to the city. Lafayette, with his won- 
derful adaptability and his wide experience, 
doubtless finds nothing strange in the simple 
life, the early hours of the Republic. Lavas- 
seur, the secretary, who chronicles it all, finds 
everything to his taste and has nothing but 
frank enjoyment for the great tour. One is not 
so sure that Bastien, the valet, takes everything 
quite so casually. 

156 



New Tork Greets Lafayette 

The Cadmus, Lavasseur tells us, appeared 
rather to be led in triumph than to be towed 
by the two steamboats that accompanied her. 
There was much thundering of cannon, much 
cheering all the way, and everywhere flags 
and badges bearing the words " Welcome La- 
fayette " were displayed ; some of them, long- 
preserved, coming to light in old attics after 
the world of that day was gone. 

The General upon landing was seated in a 
carriage drawn by four white horses and driven 
to the City Hall. Lavasseur, with all his civil 
praise for everything American, could not 
help recording, aesthetic Frenchman that he 
was, that the City Hall was the only public 
building in New York " worthy of the atten- 
tion of an artist." Perhaps he did not realize 
how few artists there were in the new land to 
wince at the less fortunate architectural ven- 
tures. 

Once at the City Hall, there were addresses 



With Lafayette in America 

by officials of the city and a great public 
reception ; then Lafayette and his party were 
driven to the City Hotel, which was magnifi- 
cently fitted up for their reception and where 
a public banquet closed the day. The City 
Hotel, we may say in passing, occupied an en- 
tire block. The house offered room and board 
for ten dollars a week, sounding a bell through 
the halls to announce the meals. Lavasseur tes- 
tified to the "precipitation and the silence" in 
which the Americans dispatched their food. At 
the simple ways of the hotel, Bastien perhaps 
again raised his shoulders, but Lafayette doubt- 
less slept quietly that first night on shore, 
pleased with all he had seen, and knowing that 
whatever life had taken from him, he still pos- 
sessed the love of America. 

The record of each tribute New York paid 
to Lafayette ('"General" Lafayette, the new 
generation had to learn to call him, for he had 
dropped the title of Marquis in the early days 

158 



New Tori Greets Lafayette 

of France's Revolution^ is an endless one. 
Every society wished to honor him, every citi- 
zen aspired to clasp his hand. The city could 
not rest until it had show^n him every benevo- 
lent institution, every mark of the progress 
she had made during his forty years' ab- 
sence. It is easier to understand how he bore 
the hardships of the Virginia campaign than it 
is to understand how he endured the official 
speeches, the public dinners, and the continu- 
ous handshaking of hearty old New York. But 
the General was of a hardy constitution ; he 
was always smiling, always delighted with all 
the eager public did for him, never weary, even 
when younger members of the party drooped 
with fatigue. His early training at the court of 
kings served him well. He could conduct him- 
self with dignity and grace even when enthusi- 
asm dropped sudden and unexpected wreaths 
of laurel upon his head. 

Lafayette was in New York during his grand 

159 



JVith Lafayette in America 

tour of the United States on four separate occa- 
sions. His first four days in America were 
spent, as we have seen, in receiving her wel- 
come ; after a journey to Boston and the neigh- 
boring country he again returned to New York, 
spending nine days there before embarking on 
the Hudson; after his return from a short voy- 
age up the beautiful river to Albany, he paused 
for a brief rest in New York before continuing 
his great journey through the States, and when 
that journey was practically at an end, he bade 
New York a final farewell, in 1 8 2 5 , joining her 
in the celebration of the forty-seventh anniver- 
sary of the Fourth of July. 

It was after his return from Boston that New 
York outdid herself, so that the other States and 
cities, do what they would when their turn came 
to entertain the beloved old man, could never 
quite come up to New York in magnificence, 
by which we see that the city of 1 8 2 4 was even 
then her gorgeous, spectacular self. 

160 



New Tork Greets Lafayette 

The night of the great celebration was that 
of September 1 3 , when a ball was given in La- 
fayette^s honor at Castle Garden, an old fort 
which was now devoted to public pleasure. A 
bridge three hundred feet long joined the fort 
to the Battery, and this bridge was lavishly cov- 
ered with an elegant carpet. In the middle of 
the bridge a great tower arose, lighted with 
many colored lights, surmounted with the name 
of Lafayette. The great amphitheater contained 
almost six thousand persons some of whom had 
arrived as early as six in the evening. A statue 
of Washington surmounted an arch at the prin- 
cipal entrance, and. New York being New York, 
it was of course a colossal statue. A bust of 
Hamilton ornamented a rich marquee under 
which the old soldier, who had so often known 
the hard ground of Virginia, was to be seated 
like a king. The colum.ns of the hall bore the 
names of the early States. It was before the 
days of illuminating gas, so that torches — a 

161 



With Lafayette in America 

thousand of them — sent up their wild, splendid 
flare, showing the men with their badges of 
Lafayette, and the women with their little gloves 
stamped with his image, with feathers in their 
hair and garlands of flowers on their gowns. 
When the General appeared, the band struck 
up " See the Conquering Hero Comes," and 
the ladies* little hands, in the wonderful little 
gloves stamped with Lafayette's picture, patted 
their applause. Then the curtains that enclosed 
the hall were raised, so that the vast crowds col- 
lected about the Battery could look in upon the 
scene. Lafayette must have been glad that they 
shared the joy of the occasion and have rejoiced 
in the dem.ocratic spirit of the times that did not 
bar the people out. 

There was dancing, of course ; but let the 
General approach a group of dancers and they 
broke off' instantly to circle about him. They 
could dance any day in New York ; they might 
never see the hero again. And then came the 

162 



New Tork Greets Lafayette 

climax of the evening. A curtain suddenly fell, 
disclosing a great transparency of Lafayette's 
home " La Grange." It was like New York to 
think of this touch ; perhaps it was like her, too, 
to label it with no more subtle sentiment than 
the words " Here Is His Home.*' 

The ball lasted until two o'clock. The 
« Evening Post " could truly say of it, " We 
hazard nothing in saying it was the most mag- 
nificent fete given under cover in the world." 
Nothing less would have satisfied New York ! 



CHAPTER II 

Philadelphia Greets Lafayette 

PHILADELPHIA and New York were 
rival cities in the days of Lafayette's visit, 
so that it was natural that the Pennsylvanians 
should make every effort to outdo the welcome 
of Manhattan. Whether they attained that am- 
bition or not, it is certain that Lafayette found 
nothing wanting in the greeting of the city 
founded by William Penn, and that he was 
glad to spend a week in the old capital to 
which he was bound fast by so many associa- 
tions. 

A week was a generous share of his time 
and society on this great tour of the twenty- 
four States; for the slow journeys on the rivers 
or in his barouche, even when that vehicle was 
drawn by four horses, consumed all too many 
hours. He had spent six days going from New 
York to Philadelphia, pausing, as he was glad 

164 



Philadelphia Greets Lafayette 

to do, at many a town and city in New Jersey 
to receive official and popular welcome. One 
would have fancied that he could have no en- 
thusiasm left for triumphal arches, nor gracious 
words of response for the speeches of proud 
mayors. But he was more than equal to each 
demand upon him, and left in each hamlet 
and town an indelible memory of his amiable 
presence. 

The towns and the cities were not only 
prodigal with their arches and their "colla- 
tions" and their addresses; they poured down 
upon him their gifts. We are lost in wonder 
as to what disposition the guest of the nation 
made of all these and how and when they were 
transferred to France. 

But now Philadelphia is pouring out to 
meet the hero, and we must, in fancy, join the 
great throng. There are so many carriages that 
they retard the advance of the very man they 
are so eager to usher into the city. In addition 

i6s 



JVith Lafayette in America 

to the carriage folks, some six thousand militia- 
men line the way, awaiting Lafayette's review. 

As he enters Philadelphia at last, the review 
at an end, vast crowds border the way. They 
occupy the seats that have been erected in va- 
cant lots. They lean from the roofs. They look 
from windows. Hospitable families have even 
removed the fan-lights over the doors so that 
as many eyes as possible may see America's 
friend. 

What a fine barouche the city has given 
him ! Those who fail to catch a glimpse of La- 
fayette's face see at least some part of the ba- 
rouche, lined with cream-colored cloth, trimmed 
with light blue, the old Continental colors of 
the country. Six cream-colored horses, their 
harness glittering with silver, draw this equi- 
page. The postillions are brave in blue and 
cream, with white-topped boots. The driver 
and the outriders wear the same livery, with 
«* yellow housings " on their horses. 

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IN i8z4 



Philadelphia Greets Lafayette 

" Every soldier's heart was in his mouth," 
the editor of the "American Daily Advertiser" 
writes, adding frankly, "As for ourselves, our 
bosom ached with the undefined emotions that 
swelled within it." There are other carriages 
besides the wonderful barouche, that carry the 
representatives of the city, and there are vans 
in the great procession that convey the old sol- 
diers of the Revolution. And this vast parade 
boasts one feature that distinguishes the entire 
celebration from anything that splendid New 
York had thought to do : there is a great gath- 
ering of the trades. Printers, cordwainers, weav- 
ers, rope-makers, coopers, and butchers march 
and are reviewed by Lafayette. Upon a float 
the printers are seen at work printing an ode 
in honor of the city's guest, which they toss to 
the crowds. There are banners displaying the 
pictures of Washington and Lafayette inscribed 
with the words, " To their wisdom and courage 
we owe the free exercise of our industry." And 

167 



With Lafayette in America 

these same men, when the procession is over, 
ending as it does at Independence Hall, are 
not afraid to extend their work-hardened hands 
for Lafayette's clasp, though some of them 
have not taken time to roll down their sleeves. 
Whether it was at this reception or at the 
levee, given a few days later, that an old lady 
was heard to say, as she pushed through the 
crowd, «< Let me see that dear young Marquis 
once again," I am not sure, but there was am- 
ple opportunity for all the admirers of the be- 
loved guest to take his hand in the old capital. 
In the week that followed, Philadelphia 
gave, of course, a ball and the Masons gave a 
dinner. Apparently there was some jealousy 
of New York, for the editor who described the 
ball had his fling at New York's pretensions. 
" We are not prepared," he began sarcastically, 
" to say that the exhibition on Monday night 
surpassed anything that was ever exhibited be- 
fore. We are rather inclined to think that the 

i68 



Philadelphia Greets Lafayette 

invention of printing was a much greater event ; 
the march of the crusaders to the deliverance 
of devoted Palestine probably outshone this 
sight in glory and in splendor. ... Sir Wal- 
ter Scott would attack us in * Blackwood' at 
once if we were so much as to hint that it could 
compare with Ashby de la Zouch, and as for 
mentioning it without first yielding the palm 
to Castle Garden fete, it is more than we dare 
do." 

The Masons' dinner, however, yielded the 
palm to no other city. "A stratagem was made 
use of with the Gas Lights, which perfectly 
astonished every beholder. Before the General 
entered, the Gas Lamps were so arranged as to 
shed a pale and mild luster like that of soft moon- 
light. When he entered, the vessels being in- 
stantly filled, a splendid blaze of light burst 
forth over the room, discovering all the hidden 
beauties of the decorations and producing upon 
every beholder the efFect of a contiguous flash 

169 



With Lafayette in America 

of lightning. The spirits of the company rose 
with the enhanced brilliancy." 

During these days in early October many 
delegations found time to present their formal 
greetings to the city's guest, yet Philadelphia, 
being even then more leisurely in her habits 
than New York, left Lafayette time for calls 
on old friends, or the " ladies " of old friends ; 
allowed him to dine once in private, and to go 
quietly to Christ Church on Sunday to hear a 
sermon by his old friend, Bishop White, who 
had been Chaplain to Congress during the 
Revolution. 

On the last morning of Lafayette's visit to 
Philadelphia, the school-children were assem- 
bled to greet him in the yard of the old State 
House. Throughout this great tour we are con- 
stantly hearing of him as being deeply affected 
by the welcome of the new generation ; often 
we hear of him gathering a child in his arms 
and of blessing groups of them wherever he 

170 



Philadelphia Greets Lafayette 

went. There were two thousand of them now 
in the yard where John Adams used to walk in 
the troubled days of the Revolution and where 
Lafayette himself must have lingered when he 
waited for Congressional recognition. The sting 
of that first cold reception had been long ago 
forgotten by America's great friend ; his heart 
had no room for the memory of slights or cold- 
ness, but had a shade of resentment remained 
the sweetness of the children's greetings must 
have banished the last trace of it forever. 

On that very October morning he left the 
city, continuing a journey that was to take him 
over many miles and through many States be- 
fore he returned to Philadelphia for a final fare- 
well in the summer of the following year. It 
was scorching weather on this second visit ; the 
thermometer did not drop below ninety-eight 
degrees during the week of his stay ; but La- 
fayette made no complaint ; he had known other 
suns as hot ; in such weather he had fought at 

171 



With Lafayette in America 

Monmouth; under such skies he had led his 
troops to and fro across Virginia, dodging and 
following Cornwallis in that last campaign. 

In Philadelphia, Lavasseur tells us, Lafayette 
felt as " it were in his own family," and a week 
there " entirely composed the fatigue of the 
General " — a compliment not paid New York. 
In spite of the heat they found time for much 
diversion; a day at the famous old fishing club 
of Schuylkill where Lafayette turned the fish 
on the coals and ate heartily of the catch with 
the fishermen of that jovial club. 

At this time he found opportunity to visit 
some of the scenes of old battles, and we find 
him at Germantown, at Brandy wine, and on 
Chestnut Hill, whence he could see Barren Hill, 
in the distance. How the lost days of his splen- 
did youth must have come back to him here, 
blotting out the bitter years when he had been 
imprisoned in Austria and Germany, erasing, 
too, the memory of all he had wished to do 

172 



Philadelphia Greets Lafayette 

for France and had been obliged to leave un- 
done! 

The July heat is not too great to keep us 
from gathering around him at Brandywine with 
those remaining veterans of the Revolution who 
greeted him there at this time, many of them 
being accompanied by their sons. With his 
retinue, Lafayette reached the Brandywine 
about noon, the plan being for him to travel up 
the stream to a certain spot where the army had 
been said to have passed. B ut the G eneral stopped 
short upon arriving there. "It cannot be here," 
he said, looking about the surrounding coun- 
try, ** that we passed in 1 7 7 7 ; it must be a little 
higher up the stream." And this proof of La- 
fayette's accurate memory of those old days 
delighted the soldiers. They must have found, 
too, a proof of how little their hero had changed 
when he found time to visit an old soldier with 
the picturesque name of Gideon Gilpin, under 
whose roof he had passed the night before the 

173 



IVith Lafayette in America 

battle of Brandy wine. Poor old Gilpin was too 
feeble to join his aged companions who had 
gone forth to greet Lafayette, and his joy was 
so great when " the Marquis " entered his bed- 
room and came to his side that the tears flowed 
down his cheeks unchecked. 

Soon after Lafayette appeared on the bat- 
tleground of Chad's Ford on the Brandywine, 
and the cheers of the old veterans from Virginia 
and Pennsylvania rose and fell in "Long live 
Lafayette! ** He spoke to all those who clustered 
about him there of Washington, of the bravery 
of the soldiers on that day they all commemo- 
rated. But for the time being the old soldiers 
chose to forget even Washington himself and 
to remember only that it was here that an im- 
petuous young man, aged nineteen, had shed 
his blood for a land not his own. 

In Philadelphia and around Philadelphia, 
Lafayette's old self must have peeped at him 
and at those who had known his youth at every 

174 



Philadelphia Greets Lafayette 

turn. Perhaps some of the veterans had seen him 
one night at Chester in the year 1780 when 
he dined at the inn of Mrs. Whitby with a party 
of his countrymen, and where they were all so 
gay and so happy at being together that they 
danced and sang the whole evening long with- 
out ever leaving ofF. One of the party left the 
picture for us in his charming book of travels, 
and had his amusement in the fact that the 
sober Americans who looked upon their frolic 
with amazement could not believe that men 
could be so gay without being drunk! What 
days those had been! Days full to the brim 
with youth's hope and fire and bounding 
health ! 

And these days were good days, too! 
America was a great and growing country. 
Every sacrifice in her cause had been well 
made. And Lafayette paused constantly on his 
way out of Philadelphia at the towns and vil- 
lages roundabout, even in the great heat of that 

175 



JVith Lafayette in America 

summer, to receive their gifts and their ad- 
dresses of welcome with a touching gratitude 
for all that the people did for him, recaptur- 
ing, doubtless, as he paused at Wilmington, 
Chad's Ford, Chester, and Lancaster, some of 
the joy in life of those early days when he had 
been able to ride and fight, dance and sing, 
for hours at a time without the slightest sense 
of fatigue. This it was that Philadelphia and 
its environs gave Lafayette, the sage on his 
great tour, sending him on his way " com- 
posed and rested." 



CHAPTER III 

Tihe Stories the Rivers Tell 

THE friends of Lafayette who helped to 
plan his tour through the twenty-four 
States were careful to make the greatest pos- 
sible use of the waterways of the country as a 
means of transportation, not only because travel 
by steamboat was more comfortable than by 
barouche, but also because it was more rapid. 
His route took him, therefore, over many of 
the great rivers of America, so that the Hud- 
son, the Potomac, the James, the Mississippi, 
the Cumberland, and the Ohio all have their 
memories of Lafayette. 

It was after the great ball at Castle Garden 
in New York City that Lafayette went up the 
Hudson. His party boarded the James Kent 
at two in the morning, leaving the dancers at 
the great ball behind them, exchanging, as the 
secretary expresses it, " the joyous sound of 

177 



With Lafayette in America 

music for the monotonous noise of the steam 
machinery struggling against the rapid waters 
of the Hudson." Not all the dancers were will- 
ing to be left behind apparently, for to the 
surprise of the Frenchmen, a great many ladies 
boarded the James Kent in their determination 
to see more of the hero. Their unexpected 
presence made it necessary for the men, in the 
good-natured American fashion, to forego oc- 
cupation of the steamboat's eighty beds and 
meekly to sleep as best they could upon deck I 
To the sound of cannon the James Kent then 
left New York, struggling under its unexpected 
load. 

The beautiful river that was all so new to La- 
vasseur had once been more than familiar to 
Lafayette. The young Marquis had lain very 
ill at Fishkill, that town on the Hudson's banks 
where the military stores and the hospitals had 
stood in the days of the Revolution. Kind Dr. 
Cochran had then brought back his patient 

178 



The Stories the Rivers Tell 

from the very grave, and Washington had been 
all tender solicitude. And now Cochran was 
no more, and Washington was no more. The 
young Marquis himself had vanished to be re- 
placed by an elderly man with a son older by 
twenty years than the lost Marquis of that dis- 
tant day. There were other memories of the 
river, too, that obtruded themselves, some of 
them painful ones. 

Suddenly the Hudson as if by caprice caught 
the James Kent on an oyster bank, holding the 
steamer fast before — of all places — the village 
of Tarrytown. The dawn made that fact plain, 
as the pleasure party, weary from the sleep on 
deck and the short night's rest broken so often 
by cannon, roused themselves for the long day. 
Forty-four years ago, in another September, a 
young man in a maroon coat, with his heart in 
his throat and papers of the greatest importance 
in his boots, had been stopped at Tarrytown, 
not by an oyster bank, but by three honest 

179 



JVith Lafayette in America 

militiamen, and as if to recall those boys who 
could not be seduced nor bribed to let Andre 
go, the river held the James Kent fast even 
though West Point awaited Lafayette. 

The old soldiers who were gathered around 
the General spoke of Paulding and his com- 
panions as the boat paused at Tarrytown, and 
when it passed the historic Robinson house on 
the eastern bank of the Hudson they spoke of 
Arnold. He had died in London twenty years 
back, but the men who had carried flintlocks 
in the Revolution could not forgive him. " Trai- 
tor I " they said as the Robinson house swung 
into view. 

Then the steamboat ploughing on what 
seemed to them all its rapid way, for it was 
making ten miles an hour against the current, 
sighted West Point and Andre and Arnold were 
forgotten while the cannons roared a welcome. 
Slowly the entire party were landed on the 
shore and Lafayette was lifted into the inevita- 

i8o 



The Stories the Rivers Tell 

ble barouche that awaited him. His youth 
looked out at him once more through the pleas- 
ant eyes of the lady who was given the honor 
of being his companion, for he recognized her 
as the widow of his " dear Hamilton/' the Betty 
Schuyler whom Hamilton had wooed and 
wedded during the Revolution. There must 
have been scant time for reminiscence even if 
the cannon's thunder had permitted it, for La- 
fayette and his party were on their way to 
Newburgh by six of that same evening. If 
the hale old General was not exhausted by all 
the many celebrations in his honor, the ladies 
who had taken such nonchalant possession of 
the steamboat's beds apparently were not so 
fortunate, for the greater number of them re- 
turned to New York from West Point, leav- 
ing the James Kent vastly more comfortable 
for their going. 

Of the memories that the Hudson cherishes 
of the five days Lafayette spent on her waters, 

i8i 



With Lafayette in America 

there is none more splendid than a fete given to 
him on the following day by one of those great 
families of wealth and position whose names 
make the story of the Hudson read like old 
romance. The Livingstons were the family who 
honored themselves in honoring Lafayette, and 
their estate was so much part of the Hudson 
and its glory that he could scarcely have been 
said to have seen the river had he not paused at 
Clermont. 

When Lafayette had been last in America, 
Robert Livingston, afterwards Chancellor of 
New York, had been the head of the house. 
Lafayette must have known him as a stanch pa- 
triot of the Revolution and later as America's 
Minister to France. The Chancellor had gone 
his way before this visit, leaving two daugh- 
ters, both of whom had married other Living- 
stons, so perpetuating the great name. It was 
still a Robert Livingston who owned Clermont 
and who now advanced through his beautiful 

182 



The Stories the Rivers Tell 

grounds down the river's sloping bank to greet 
his guest. 

The lawn of Clermont was filled with eager 
spectators, with soldiers, with Free Masons, as 
if it had been the streets of a city rather than a 
country estate. There was 2ifeu dejoie for the 
guests and the usual speeches. Then Edward 
Livingston, the other son-in-law of the former 
Chancellor, bore Lafayette away to another 
Livingston estate for a cold collation. They 
were joined by a steamboat full of other 
guests, among them quite properly a Van 
Rensselaer. 

Then it was Robert Livingston's turn to 
claim Lafayette again ; so back they all went to 
Clermont where there was a great dinner for 
the guest of honor, with plates in the green- 
house and on the steamboat for all the soldiers 
and most of the spectators on this famous day. 
There was a ball, too, and there were fireworks 
from New York. On the following morning 

183 



With Lafayette in America 

his host escorted Lafayette down to the waiting 
steamboat, and as the James Kent chugged on 
its way to Albany, the very engine seemed to 
pant out the name Livingston ; for had it not 
been for Livingston faith and Livingston money 
the invention of Fulton would not so soon have 
been given to the world. But that is another 
story the Hudson has to tell. 

That night, long after the hour set for arrival, 
the party came to Albany, and now by the 
light of torches we see more arches and crowds 
that cheer Lafayette until he is safe within the 
Capitol. Long years ago he had languished in 
Albany during that first winter in America 
when the friends of Gates conspired against 
Washington. The dream of an attack on Canada 
had sent Lafayette here, but only humiliation 
and disappointment had awaited him. Those 
days, however, so bitter to his youth are long 
over. The war is almost forgotten. New York 
is a great State and Albany is its capital. The 

184 



The Stories the Rivers Tell 

legislators are applauding wildly as Lafayette 
enters the Assembly Room. 

And now he addresses them in English with 
the accent that marks him still for so much the 
Frenchman, and the room is hushed as he re- 
calls the old days when Albany had been on 
the edge of the wilderness, and he gratifies his 
hearers with his assurance that ** at present I 
find Albany a rich and powerful city." 

A little later they lead him to a balcony so 
that all the waiting world may see his face if 
only by the flare of torches and then, before 
the crowd, an eagle is lowered with a laurel 
wreath in its beak which is placed upon Lafa- 
yette's long-sufi'ering head. Not even that atten- 
tion lessens his love for his adopted country, 
and as ever he manages the situation with grace 
and dignity. Then there is a ball which he leaves 
at midnight in order to seek a little rest. 

It was in September following his arrival in 
i8s 



JVith Lafayette in America 

America that General Lafayette made the voy- 
age up the Hudson. A month later he was on 
the Potomac, having in the interim visited Nevs^ 
York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington. 
On the 1 7 th of October he left the Capital to 
attend a celebration of the victory of Yorktown 
with his old soldiers. The journey was better 
made by water than by land, so that his way lay 
partly on the Potomac. And so it is that this 
river has a picture of Lafayette for us pecu- 
liarly and beautifully its own. 

The blue waters of that wide and lovely river 
ran by the home of Washington. Lafayette had 
not entered the door of that stately and well- 
ordered establishment since he had come back 
to help celebrate the peace in 1784. The re- 
membrance of the spacious, pleasant Virginia 
home had been often with him. It was here that 
he had sent the key of the Bastile when revolu- 
tion broke over France in the days before an- 
archy triumphed. It was here that he had often 

186 




^ 




mn 




I^^^^^^^^^^^QlS 


■S^^^^^^^^^^l 


'^^K^SrfK-'wl^' ^^i^^^f^^^^^M 



The Stories the Rivers Tell 

been in fancy during those terrible years in 
prison, knowing as he did that his son had found 
shelter here, thanks to the wisdom of Madame 
Lafayette. To Lafayette as well as to George, 
then, the great white house on the Potomac was 
a dear and second home, eloquent at every step 
of a great presence never more to be found 
within its doors. 

With their hearts filled with emotion the 
father and the son, and the sympathetic Lavas- 
seur as well, looked out upon Mount Vernon's 
shores. Being Frenchmen it did not occur to 
any of them to suppress this emotion nor dis- 
guise its expression. Quite simply when the 
guns of Fort Washington announced their ap- 
proach, they all fell upon their knees. 

Three nephews of Washington waited to 
greet them on the shore. A carriage was there 
to bear Lafayette up the steep incline, he who 
had bounded so lightly up those banks when 
last he was there; but the others followed 

187 



With Lafayette in America 

on foot, silently and gravely. The nephews 
took Lafayette and George and Lavasseur to 
the tomb while the other members of the party 
withdrew considerately to the house. "The 
tomb of the citizen soldier was scarcely per- 
ceived," Lavasseur wrote, " amid the somber 
cypresses by which it is surrounded." The 
door of the vault was opened and Lafayette 
took his son by one hand and Lavasseur by 
the other and entered. He who was so ready 
with appropriate words on all occasions had no 
words now; by a sign only he indicated to his 
companions where Washington lay; then he 
dropped on his knees and kissed the spot. In his 
youth he had shared Washington's coat for a 
pillow after the battle of Monmouth; he had 
suffered with Washington at Valley Forge; 
they had received together the news of Ar- 
nold's treason ; the proud day at Yorktown had 
been their mutual triumph; and now the chief 
had gone where the man who loved him could 

i88 



The Stories the Rivers Tell 

no longer follow. The tears rained down La- 
fayette's face as he turned to clasp in his arms 
that son who bore Washington's name. 

As they came forth again to the glory of 
October in the Virginia woods, the nephew of 
Washington gave Lafayette a ring, containing, 
in the approved fashion of the day, a lock of 
Washington's hair. And in the approved fash- 
ion of that same day the nephew made a formal 
and flowery speech of presentation, addressing 
Lafayette as "venerable man" and reminding 
him of his ** setting sun" and other facts that La- 
fayette, in his hale sixty-eighth year, might have 
well have been pardoned for resenting. He did 
not resent them. He took the speech and the 
ring both in the spirit in which they were meant 
to be taken and replied with great simplicity : 
«« I can only thank you, my dear Custis, for 
your precious gift. I pay a silent homage to 
the tomb of the greatest and best of men, my 
paternal friend." 

189 



With Lafayette in America 

They then went silently through the great 
house, coming upon the key of the Bastile ex- 
actly in the place where George Lafayette re- 
membered seeing Washington carefully place 
it. 

After a brief rest the party made its way 
back to the boat, each member bearing a 
branch of cypress, and then, gathering around 
Lafayette, they listened to him talk of Wash- 
ington until the shadows fell. And this is the 
memory of the Potomac ! 

It was many months after the visit to Mount 
Vernon that Lafayette ascended the waters of 
the Ohio. He had passed the winter in Wash- 
ington, waiting there for the spring to come be- 
fore continuing his great journey through the 
twenty-four States of the Union. On his journey 
through the South and through the great West 
we find him enjoying many miles of river 
travel. The States and the towns generously 

190 






-/ 







THE TOMB OF WASHINGTON 



The Stories the Rivers Tell 

provided the steamboats for his conveyance, 
with every possible attention to his comfort, 
Louisiana sending him by way of the Missis- 
sippi to St. Louis, St. Louis sending him to 
several points in Illinois, Tennessee meeting 
him at the mouth of the Ohio to convey him 
up that great and beautiful river. Let us look 
in upon the steamboat Mechanic as it makes 
its way towards Louisville in that May of 
1825. It is crowded to capacity, for the be- 
loved Lafayette is on board and many per- 
sons are eager to share the pleasures of the 
trip with him. First of all there is his own im- 
mediate party, his only son, George Lafayette, 
a retiring, modest gentleman of middle years ; 
Lavasseur the secretary, and Bastien, that faith- 
ful French servant, without whom Lafayette 
would find it hard to make a journey. Among 
the passengers we note Governor Carroll of 
Tennessee, a Mr. Thibeaudot of Louisiana, and 
a Mr. Neilson, the latter a business man inter- 

191 



JVith Lafayette in America 

ested in steamships. Likely as not we shall find 
Mr. Neilson talking to some one of the party 
of his fine ship the Paragon, which ought to 
be on its way even now to New Orleans with 
its hold full of a valuable cargo of tobacco. As 
Lafayette is not in sight, we shall have to make 
our way to the vessePs stern to find him. De- 
scending some dozen steps we find the ladies' 
cabin where the General is quartered with his 
son, his secretary, and another gentleman. The 
good General is hard at work with Lavasseur 
answering the many letters that demand his 
attention. These must be answered in any leis- 
ure moment that presents itself, so they two 
work together all day long. By ten o'clock at 
night the General is weary. A few moments 
later he is fast asleep. By eleven the whole ves- 
sel is quiet, Lavasseur being among the few 
who have not gone to bed. He wanders about 
the ship talking to the Captain, the Pilot — 
whoever will lend him entertainment. 

192 



The Stories the Rivers Tell 

How proud the Captain is of conveying 
Lafayette up the Ohio. His boat plunges 
through the night at a high rate of speed. 
Lafayette has met with many small delays on 
his great journey ; the Captain is determined 
to reach Louisville on schedule time. 

Midnight comes. Suddenly throughout the 
vessel a great shock is felt. The boat stops 
short. The usual confusion at once ensues* 
Half-dressed people tumble out of berths. Sail- 
ors run to and fro and refuse to answer ques- 
tions. The all-knowing assure the timid that 
nothing is wrong. The timid refuse to be con- 
vinced. Some one with an active imagination 
suggests a sandbar. A sense of relief is felt. 
" A sandbar ! " is repeated with growing assur- 
ance. Then a cry rings out that strikes terror 
to the hearts of those who know the river. "A 
snag ! A snag ! " 

A snag it proves to be that has so rudely 
broken the voyage. Already the water is pour- 

193 



JVith Lafayette in America 

ing into the ship^s hold. Literally there are but 
a few moments in which to save life and prop- 
erty. The boat echoes with the Captain's dis- 
tressed cry of " Lafayette ! Lafayette I Where 
is Lafayette ? " 

Lavasseur rushes to the ladies' cabin where 
Bastien with trembling hands is dressing the 
General with all haste. There is no time for a 
toilet, especially for one of Bastien' s perfect 
toilets. George Lafayette and Lavasseur seize 
General Lafayette and literally push him up the 
stairs to the deck. Suddenly the General stops 
short. He has forgotten something. He is de- 
termined to go back. It is the snuff-box orna- 
mented with a portrait of Washington. He will 
not leave the ship without that box, endeared to 
him by associations. Lavasseur runs back, finds 
the snuff-box, and restores it to the owner. Now 
at last Lafayette is on deck. A boat is lowered. 
Every one even in that hour of terror falls back. 
There is no question save in a single mind, who 

194 



The Stories the Rivers Tell 

shall be placed first in that boat. It is Lafayette 
himself who demurs, but his scruples are over- 
borne somehow, some way. Lavasseur and the 
Captain get him into the lifeboat. 

Now the Ohio receives him on her breast in 
the blackness of midnight in this frail craft. 
The Captain himself is at the helm and directs 
their course in the heavy darkness. The boat 
holds but a handful. Among the first passengers 
is a little child. She and Lafayette are landed in 
the black, wet forest along the Ohio. Then sud- 
denly Lafayette discovers that his son George 
is not with him. He who had been controlled 
all his life in the presence of every imaginable 
danger, he who had faced cannon, swords, and 
angry mobs without a tremor, has no fortitude 
to face life without his son. His bitter cry 
echoes along the Ohio : «« George ! George ! " 
he cries wildly. Lavasseur cannot comfort him. 
** George ! George ! '* — the cry is continued 
even when the secretary is on his way back to 

195 



With Lafayette in America 

the ship. Lavasseur was not successful on this 
trip, nor on the next, in finding George, though 
he did rescue poor Bastien whom he found 
clinging to the roof of the lopsided cabin. But 
George was found at last and returned to soothe 
his frantic father. Lafayette's son had lingered 
on the boat until he was assured that every soul 
was safe. A modest, retiring man was this son of 
the hero, but never wanting in the hour of need. 
And now the great river sees a strange sight 
on her shore. By the light of a bonfire that a 
drizzling rain tries to quench, she sees the party 
from the steamboat reduced to the condition of 
gypsies. The Governor of Tennessee, without 
shoes or stockings, wades about the waters pick- 
ing up what debris he can find. A mattress only 
partially soaked finds its way to the shore and 
on this they persuade the General to lie down. 
Old campaigner that he is, Lafayette falls asleep 
here under the dripping trees once he is certain 
of his son's safety. 

196 



The Stories the Rivers Tell 

When morning dawns, like the shipwrecked 
folk in a tale, the party collects such articles of 
food as can be found on the half-submerged 
ship. They all make a breakfast under the 
trees of smoked venison, biscuits, and claret 
wine. A little later they persuade the General 
that he must seek greater safety and protection 
from the weather, and once again he embarks 
in the lifeboat in an attempt to cross the river. 
Mr. Thibeaudot and Bastien accompany him. 
Soon the waiting party on shore see two steam- 
boats descending the river. They are the High- 
land Laddie and — yes, the Paragon, that ship of 
which Mr. Neilson is owner, risking loss of in- 
surance by the change of route. The Highland 
Laddie has already made the same offer. The 
broad Ohio, therefore, has done no harm. The 
snag has only served to prove that even in a 
lifeboat the General is as popular as ever. The 
two ships contend for the honor of reversing 
their course if by so doing they can assist him. 

197 



With Lafayette in America 

The Paragon is chosen, and soon, dry and 
happy, the party of fifty are steaming once 
more on the way to Louisville. 

They leave behind them the disconsolate 
Captain of the Mechanic. Lafayette and the 
party did what they could to assuage his feel- 
ings by drawing up a declaration acquitting 
him from all charge of carelessness, but even 
this act of kindness could not restore the Cap- 
tain's proud confidence. He could only repeat, 
" Never will my fellow citizens pardon me 
for the peril to which Lafayette has been ex- 
posed." 

And the Ohio, which like so many rivers, 
has such wonderful tales to tell, murmurs still 
to all those who love the past this story of 
the shipwreck of Lafayette. How much emo- 
tion it embodies: Lafayette's wild anguish, the 
son's quiet heroism, the bitter self-reproach of 
the proud Captain, and the generous response 
of the owners of the boats. Though the back- 

198 



The Stories the Rivers Tell 

ground of the Ohio's story is nothing more 
than a tangled forest lighted by bonfires into 
whose flames the spring rain drifts, it rivals in 
interest the tale of the historic Potomac or ot 
the lordly banks of the Hudson. 



CHAPTER IV 

Visits to Great Men 

IT was natural that Lafayette on his great 
tour of the country should wish to visit the 
men who had done so much to make America 
what it was. That many of these men had been 
his friends in earlier days added to his desire to 
pay them his respects. He himself had made 
his contribution to America's cause in such early 
youth that he had been thrown constantly with 
men much his senior, so that now that he had 
reached his sixty-seventh year these friends of 
former years were aged men. 

John Adams was in his eighty-ninth year 
when Lafayette, soon after arriving in New 
York, paid his first visit to Boston. Lafayette 
must have felt himself a young man still, by 
contrast, when he entered the simple wooden 
house at Quincy, Massachusetts, where the 
elder Adams dwelt. There was litde to recall 



200 



Visits to Great Men 

the man Lafayette had known in the days of the 
Revolution in the old man who looked dimly up 
at him from his chair unable from his infirmities 
to rise. Lafayette had driven from Boston to 
Quincy insisting upon paying this visit without 
the formal attendance of any of the organiza- 
tions that would so gladly have accompanied 
him. But Adams knew well of the enthusiasm 
the visit was creating in Boston and New York, 
and he frequently expressed his joy in the coun- 
try's welcome. It was soon time to drive back to 
Boston on that long, slow journey behind the 
horses. "We left him," said Lavasseur, " filled 
with admiration at the courage with which he 
supported the pains and infirmities which the 
lapse of nearly half a century had accumulated 
upon him." Admiration well bestowed, for to 
that strong, dominating personality it doubtless 
took more courage to sit patiently in a chair as 
life ebbed slowly out than it had taken boldly 
to sign the Declaration of Independence. 

20I 



TVith Lafayette in America 

It was in August after his arrival in New 
York that Lafayette paid that visit to John 
Adams ; it was not until the following October 
or nearly November that he drove the eighty 
miles which separated Richmond from Monti- 
cello to seek out his well-loved friend, Thomas 
Jefferson. His intimacy with Jefferson had 
been of the quality of true friendship. Their 
ideals had been singularly alike. They had 
been thrown much together, although they had 
not looked upon each other's faces for many 
and many a day. 

Jefferson had been Governor of Virginia in 
the days when Lafayette had tried to protect 
the State against Cornwallis. Later he had been 
sent by his Government to France and had 
known Lafayette in his own environment, had 
visited at his house, admired his wife and loved 
his children. Lines taken here and there from 
Jefferson's letters extending over many years 
tell the story of that long intimacy. When Jef- 

202 



Visits to Great Men 

ferson was in Paris in 1787 he wrote home : 
« The Marquis de Lafayette is a most valuable 
auxiliary to me. His zeal is unbounded and his 
weight with those in power is great." 

In that same year, he wrote to Lafayette 
himself, ending the letter with apologies for not 
filling it with more ardent expressions of affec- 
tion. "... according to the ideas of my coun- 
try," wrote honest Jefferson, «« we do not per- 
mit ourselves even truths when they have the 
air of flattery. I content myself therefore with 
saying once for all that I love you, your wife 
and children. Tell them so, and adieu. Th. 
Jefferson." 

After his return to America, Jefferson was 
persuaded to take a position in the Cabinet. 
He wrote to Lafayette: " Behold me, my dear 
friend, elected Secretary of State instead of re- 
turning to the far more agreeable daily partici- 
pation in your friendship." And he reassures 
Lafayette upon the subject of France^s Revolu- 

203 



With Lafayette in America 

tion, which was meeting with difficulties and 
dangers, by reminding him that " we are not 
translated from despotism to liberty on a feather 
bed," warning him to beware of his personal 
safety. " I am convinced were she [France] to 
lose you, it would cost her oceans of blood and 
years of confusion and anarchy. Kiss the dear 
children for me. Learn them to be, as you are, 
a cement between two nations." 

When Lafayette was imprisoned by the Aais- 
trians at Olmiitz, Jefferson had written to a 
friend : " I have received your kind letter of 
August 19, with the extract from that of Lafa- 
yette for whom my heart has been bleeding. 
The action of the United States has been put 
in action as far as it could be either with de- 
cency or effect." 

Long years passed in which the two men did 
not meet. When Lafayette arrived in America, 
it was natural that Jefferson should long to see 
him. He wrote the General an urgent invitation 

204 



Visits to Great Men 

to come to Monticello, that beautiful Virginia 
home whose doors were ever open. <* What a 
history we have to run over," he said in this 
letter of invitation, "from that evening that 
yourself, Mousnier, Bernan, and other patriots 
settled in my house in Paris the outlines of the 
constitution you wished, and to trace it through 
all the disastrous chapters of Robespierre, Bar- 
ras, Bonaparte, and the Bourbons. These things, 
however, are for our meetings — in the mean- 
time we are impatient that your ceremonies at 
York should be over and give you to the em- 
braces of friendship." 

Lafayette did not arrive at the house of his 
old friend in the simple style in which he had 
gone to Quincy. Perhaps Jefferson himself 
was not averse to making more of an occasion 
of the visit. The volunteer cavalry of Virginia 
and the committee of arrangement of Rich- 
mond accompanied the nation's guest, lining 
up on the lawn of Monticello to witness the 

205 



With Lafayette in America 

meeting between the two great idealists of sis- 
ter countries while crowds of country folk com- 
pleted the circle. 

When the two friends had parted last, Jef- 
ferson was at the height of his powers, a bril- 
liant man of forty-four years. " The Marquis'* 
was just thirty, his mature manhood fulfilling 
the promise of his youth. And now the ba- 
rouche toils up the long hill upon whose sum- 
mit Monticello rests, a man of sixty-seven 
alights, still ruddy and strong, a litde inclined 
to corpulency, slightly lame, his plain, kindly 
face alight with interest and anticipation. The 
doors of Monticello open and a spare old gen- 
tleman of eighty-one, with a waistcoat and a 
stock that defy the prevailing modes, hastens 
down the steps. The two chief actors in this 
little drama have been the center of curious eyes 
too many decades to feel the slightest embarrass- 
ment in the many spectators of their meeting. 
" They break into a kind of shuffling run." 

206 



Visits to Great Men 

"Ah, Jefferson I " cries Lafayette. 

"Ah, Lafayette!" cries the sage of Mon- 
ticello, and they clasp each other in a long 
embrace. 

Then together they enter the doors of the 
house and the crowds must make the best of 
what they have seen, and disperse. 

Monticello must have been a charming 
place to visit, instinct as it everywhere was 
with the personality of its interesting owner. 
Jefferson himself had designed the house, 
which was in the Italian style, and had even 
worked upon its construction with his own 
hands. He had lived here many years. He 
had brought his wife here as a bride ; during 
the long years of his public service he had 
thought of it always as a haven of rest. When 
his labors for the country were over, he re- 
tired here happily and let the world come to 
him. 

What a pleasure it would have been to look 

207 



JVith Lafayette in America 

in upon the dining-table that first night that 
Lafayette spent at Monticello, to listen to the 
reminiscences of JeiFerson and his guest. I 
think that we should have known the quin- 
tessence of enjoyment as they two recalled the 
days that had gone and made their prophecies 
for the years to come. 

The room in which they sat was graced by 
busts of Washington, Franklin, Lafayette, and 
Paul Jones. The drawing-rooms through which 
they strolled later were filled with fine paint- 
ings and statuary and other treasures that Jef- 
ferson's travel in Europe, his lavish purse, and 
fine taste had made it possible to bring to the 
Virginia woods. 

All too quickly the days at Monticello 
passed, for engagements elsewhere claimed 
Lafayette, tearing him from what Jefferson 
had called " the embraces of friendship." 
When the hour came for leaving, Jeff*erson 
accompanied his guest as far as Charlottes- 

208 



Visits to Great Men 

ville, where, in his company, they visited the 
University of Virginia. 

Some eight months before Lafayette had 
landed in America, a lady had written to 
" Dolly " Madison, the wife of that Madison 
who had been the fourth President of the 
United States, to ask: "What do you think of 
the probability of having the Marquis de La- 
fayette for a visit, for surely Montpelier will be 
the first place to fly to when he comes to the 
United States." 

Undoubtedly Mrs. Madison, one of the most 
accomplished and charming women of that 
early America, thought very well of such a visit 
and urged her husband, when he went to Char- 
lottesville, to meet Jefferson and Lafayette to 
bring the popular General home without fail. 

Madison and Lafayette had met before. In 
1784, when Lafayette had been sent to treat 
with the Indians in Albany, Madison had joined 

209 



With Lafayette in America 

him, speaking well of his companion afterwards, 
finding him as "sincere an American as any 
Frenchman can be/' With his own stern, Anglo- 
Saxon reserve, he could not help remarking that 
when "the Marquis" did a good act he did 
not mind having it known, but he did not deny 
the good acts nor the charm of the " frankness 
of temper" that was quite as willing to trumpet 
the good acts of his friends. 

Madison himself was a silent and a grave 
man, — "the wisest of the Presidents except 
Washington,'' — but not averse to livelier quali- 
ties in others. His vivacious wife had always 
lightened his moods. He liked to seek her so- 
ciety in troubled moments and to know the 
refreshment of a laugh. I like to think that it 
was in some such mood that Madison now 
sought Lafayette to bring him home from the 
University of Virginia. Doubtless the two men 
talked of farming quite as much as they did of 
politics, for Lafayette, since his retirement to 

2IO 



Visits to Great Men 

La Grange, enjoyed the pleasures of agricul- 
ture as much as did Jefferson and Madison. 
Madison was a neighbor of Jefferson, in the 
liberal interpretation of that word in Virginia, 
and lived at Montpelier with much the same 
quiet enjoyment as his neighbor lived at Mon- 
ticello. Both the country houses looked out on 
the Blue Ridge Mountains. Both were open to 
many friends and strangers, and both men knew 
the difficulties of making these pleasant coun- 
try estates profitable investments. Madison laid 
the failure of return largely to the difficulties 
of cultivating the land with slave labor, and 
doubtless Lafayette, in his hatred of slavery, 
rejoiced in Madison's discontent in its practical 
application. 

After the noise of cannon and of cities, the 
constant traveling by boat or by barouche, La- 
fayette must have enjoyed the four quiet days 
with the ex-President and his charming wife in 
their well-ordered estate. Montpelier embraced 

2 11 



JVith Lafayette in America 

almost twenty-five thousand acres, and we may 
be sure that Lafayette's interest extended to 
everything there, from the fields of tobacco to 
the cabins where the slaves dwelt. He found 
his way to the negro quarters of the plantation 
more than once, coming back with nosegays 
which some aged negroes enjoyed arranging 
for him. 

Doubtless he laughed with Madison when 
some of the slaves addressed him in French and 
was amused to learn that a French gardener had 
taken pains to teach them some words of that 
language. The French gardener was a very 
important person at Montpelier. To his skill 
Madison owed the flower garden in the form 
of a horseshoe, which seemed to justify the fabu- 
lous sum of four hundred dollars a year which 
the French gardener was said to receive. 

In addition to the garden with the flowers 
primly dancing in the horseshoe, there was a 
fine ha-ha hedge, enclosing a lawn with two 

2 12 



Visits to Great Men 

tulip trees in the center. Had some curious 
neighbor peeped over the top of this hedge 
during these eventful days, he would have been 
well rewarded by seeing the great and silent 
Madison, dressed neatly in a black coat, knee 
breeches, and buckled shoes, his hair in a queue, 
walking beside an animated, elderly man in a 
blue coat and nankeen trousers, while more 
than likely " Dolly " Madison was with them, 
enlivening the conversation with her gay sallies. 
During the evenings that Lafayette was in 
this pleasant home, the neighboring planters 
came in to pay their respects, and then the 
conversation grew serious, as it ranged over the 
great topics of the day. Slavery came in for 
its share of discussion, and Lafayette without 
offense let his own views on that subject be 
plainly understood. The planters, in their close 
contact with the problem, could bring forward 
with intelligence the difficulties that attended 
various schemes for bringing the evil to an end, 

213 



JVith Lafayette in America 

while Lafayette, though listening with respect, 
could still contend that all men have the right 
to freedom. 

On the 1 9th of November, the pleasant 
drives about the plantation, the walks within 
the ha-ha hedge, and the stimulating talks over 
the dinner-table, came to an end. Lafayette 
bade his host and his charming wife farewell 
and continued his travels. 

Lafayette passed the winter that followed 
his visits to Monticello and Montpelier in the 
city of Washington, staying at the same house 
with the most popular man in America, An- 
drew Jackson, the hero of the battle of New 
Orleans. Jackson had his wife with him — that 
Rachel Ro bards whose story had been threshed 
threadbare by a country where to be a divorced 
woman was to court ostracism. Rachel Jack- 
son had been such a one when Jackson married 
her, and Jackson's enemies were not likely to 

2 14 , 



Visits to Great Men 

let him forget it. By wounding him in his most 
sensitive spot they could strike fire fi-om " Old 
Hickory " at any time, but it would have taken 
more than their slurs to have made him regret 
his union. 

It was in Washington that Lafayette met the 
famous pair. In his chivalry he must have gone 
out of his way to treat Mrs. Jackson kindly, 
with the result that she could write a friend that 
she was " delighted with him "and could testify, 
« he is an extraordinary man. He has a happy 
faculty of knowing those he has once seen." 

When Lafayette visited the West in the fol- 
lowing spring and summer, it was fitting that 
"Old Hickory," in the character of chief son 
of Tennessee, should await him at Nashville. 
Jackson did not live in that city, though he 
was a familiar figure there, but on his country 
estate, " The Hermitage," some miles down 
the river. He had hastened to the town, how- 
ever, to take part in the welcome to the Gen- 

215 



With Lafayette in America 

eral, bringing his wife with him. During the 
procession into Nashville, Lafayette learned 
from Jackson of his wife's presence there and 
found time in that hurried day to pay her a 
visit, an act of homage that doubtless pleased 
the lady's husband more than any honor to 
himself could have done. 

On this same day Nashville gave Lafayette 
a dinner at four in the afternoon, an hour that 
did not seem strange to 1 8 2 5. " Old Hickory'* 
presided, and doubtless did so exceedingly 
well; for though "his phraseology sufficiently 
betokened he had not spent his time among 
books," he had both force and wit, with a fund 
of good stories at his command not rivaled by 
any public man until the time of Lincoln. 

Jackson was fifty years old at this time, a 
tall, thin figure, with a profusion of stiff hair 
that gave him sometimes " a formidable ap- 
pearance." Aaron Burr had said of him that 
he " was a man of intelligence, one of those 

216 



Visits to Great Men 

prompt, frank, ardent souls whom I love to 
meet." Behind him towered the conquest of 
Florida and the battle of New Orleans, while 
before him loomed the Presidency. The guests 
who sat that day at table supposed that honor 
would elude his grasp. The preceding Feb- 
ruary he had received the greatest number of 
votes of any candidate, but as no candidate had 
a majority, the election had gone to the House 
of Representatives who made John Quincy 
Adams President of the United States. Not 
until four years later did Jackson take his place 
in the distinguished line. 

On the following day, after the Nashville 
celebration, Lafayette drove with Jackson to 
" The Hermitage." <* Old Hickory " was as 
fond of farming as were the great men of Vir- 
ginia whom Lafayette had visited. His great 
estate was his pleasure; his horses were his 
pride. In the midst of his many acres stood 
his house, so modest a dwelling that Lavasseur 

217 



With Lafayette in America 

was struck with astonishment that a man spoken 
of for the Presidency, a hero of the last war, 
could dwell there without remark. What would 
the Secretary have said had he known that the 
present ** Hermitage " had been built to gratify 
Mrs. Jackson and that but six years earlier the 
Jacksons had dwelt very happily in a log house 
of five rooms. The party soon after their ar- 
rival sat down to a bounteous. Western dinner 
at one o'clock, after which Jackson proudly 
led his visitors about his well-kept farm. 

Before Lafayette left, the hero of New Or- 
leans handed him a brace of pistols, asking 
him if he recognized them. 

" I gave them to General Washington in 
1778," said Lafayette in wonder; and then 
with his usual kindness and grace he expressed 
his pleasure that they should have fallen into 
Jackson's handso 

"Yes," said "Old Hickory," flushing with 
pleasure, — "yes, I believe myself worthy of 

218 



Visits to Great Men 

them, if not for what I have done, at least for 
what I wished to do for my country." And 
with that picture of Jackson, we will bid good- 
bye to " The Hermitage." 

James Monroe had been President of the 
United States when Lafayette had arrived for 
his long visit. Before Lafayette's return to 
France, Adams occupied the Presidential chair 
and Monroe had joined the group of ex-Presi- 
dents. Lafayette had already paid his respects 
to three men who had once held that office. It 
now seemed fitting that he should go to Oak 
Hill to pay a similar visit to Monroe. 

Monroe was nearer Lafayette's contempo- 
rary than any of the other distinguished men 
whose doors he had entered. Monroe was but 
a year Lafayette's junior, and had been in the 
battles of Brandy wine and Monmouth as a lieu- 
tenant in a Virginia regiment. This fact alone 
must have given them much food for conversa- 

219 



With Lafayette in America 

tion ; but in further claim to Lafayette^ s esteem 
Monroe knew France well, having been there 
as envoy after the fall of Robespierre. Lafa- 
yette at that time was languishing in prison and 
Monroe had carried on a complex correspond- 
ence dealing with his release. He had not been 
able to bring that about, but he had been instru- 
mental in having Madame Lafayette freed from 
her imprisonment, a fact that her husband was 
not apt to have forgotten. Probably, then, it 
was with honest anticipation that Lafayette set 
forth for Oak Hill, another Virginia country 
place, accompanied by the new President, John 
Qiiincy Adams. Three days were passed pleas- 
antly with Monroe and his family. Mrs. Mon- 
roe was still living and in her handsome middle 
years still recalled the young woman whom the 
Parisians had called «< La belle Americaine." 

Monroe was not a striking personality. His 
face in repose was stern, his expression harsh, 
but a smile lighted his face now and then, and 

220 



'Visits to Great Men 

that smile must have played over his features 
when Lafayette alighted at his doors. " He had 
no grace either in appearance or manner," his 
biographer confessed. What a contrast Lafa- 
yette must have presented as they walked about 
Oak Hill on these last days, and yet not too 
sharp a contrast, for in the inner graces of up- 
right character they were not so unlike. 

It was the last visit of this nature Lafayette 
was to pay in the States, for his farewell to Amer- 
ica followed soon upon his farewell to Oak Hill 
and Monroe. 



F 



CHAPTER V 

The Cordial Southern Cities 
^ORTY-SEVEN years had passed since 
the June day when Lafayette, the run- 
away youth, had landed in America, groping 
his way through the darkness to the door of 
Colonel Huger, of Georgetown, South Caro- 
lina. The welcome he had received within that 
hospitable home, the welcome he had received 
in Charleston on the days that followed, was 
of a character to endear the South and its 
people forever. It was natural, therefore, that 
America's distinguished guest should plan to 
visit South Carolina and her neighboring States 
before bidding America a final farewell. 

General Lafayette had passed the greater 
part of the winter in Washington, but with the 
spring thaws of 1825 he began to make his 
plans for further traveling. He determined not 
only to go through the Southern States, but to 

222 



The Cordial Southern Cities 

visit the West as well, to penetrate even into 
the wilderness that bordered the Mississippi. 

On the 2 3d of February, therefore, we see 
him start forth again, provided by Mrs. Eliza 
Custis, a relative of Washington, with a <* most 
comfortable and commodious carriage." The 
roads through the South were little better than 
they had been when Lafayette had galloped 
over them on his way to Philadelphia in 1777. 
He had felt little fatigue then and he com- 
plained of little now, though he had so many 
more years on his shoulders. As his carriage 
pitched and bumped on its way through the 
pine woods and past the rice-fields and the 
fields of indigo of the South, he was constantly 
stopping to receive the greetings of the people. 
Camden, South Carolina, boasted only two 
hundred inhabitants, but he paused there, on 
his way to Charleston, and laid the corner- 
stone for a monument to Baron de Kalb. 

To the young girls who strewed flowers in 
223 



With Lafayette in America 

the General's way and to the boys in the mi- 
litia De Kalb was merely the name of a foreign 
officer who had died for America at Camden, 
but to Lafayette, who laid the stone, De Kalb 
was a man of flesh and blood whom he had 
known for good and for bad as one knows one's 
fellows. Together they had crossed the sea on 
that first bold expedition to America ; together 
they had stumbled through the black night to 
the door of Colonel Huger at Georgetown; 
side by side they had ridden through the wil- 
derness to Philadelphia and waited there for the 
recognition of Congress. 

De Kalb, whose attitude had been more or 
less censorious in the new land and whose carp- 
ing did not always spare Washington himself, 
had never had anything but good words for La- 
fayette. «*I always meet him with the same 
cordiality and the same pleasure," he had writ- 
ten home. When Lafayette departed for France 
on furlough, a cry of nostalgia was wrung from 

224 



The Cordial Southern Cities 

De Kalb who wrote to his wife : " As often as 
a Frenchman returns home my heart is ready- 
to burst with homesickness. I am very tired of 
the war here and would have been glad to go 
to Paris with Lafayette. Receive him kindly and 
courteously and thank him for numerous proofs 
of regard he has extended." He and Lafayette 
were not to meet again. Riddled with eleven 
wounds, De Kalb fell in the battle of Camden 
and his bones rested perforce in the land of 
which he had grown so weary. Tenderly La- 
fayette lowered the stone in the lonely South- 
ern village with its inscription: " This stone was 
placed over the remains of Baron De Kalb by 
General Lafayette in 1825." 

They were all growing weary of pine forests 
and of bad roads when they drew near Charles- 
ton. It was in the middle of March and La- 
fayette and his son and his secretary found the 
city a veritable paradise. The great magnolias 

225 



JVith Lafayette in America 

were in bloom ; the air was heavy with the scent 
of the blossoming fruit trees. Friends could age 
and friends could die, but the beauty of Charles- 
ton was unchanged. And then, added delight, 
they heard at every turn their own native lan- 
guage. A group of Frenchmen in the uniform 
of the old French National Guard had come, 
with many delegations and many American 
troops, to escort the guest of honor to the city. 
Their " Vive Lafayette I " rang out pleasantly 
in the intoxicating air. To the Frenchmen the 
honor was given of marching nearest the coach 
of General Lafayette. 

But there was one of Charleston's citizens 
whose right to be near Lafayette was greater 
than that of any of the Frenchmen who had 
greeted him so gayly. This was Francis Huger, 
son of that Colonel Huger who had welcomed 
Lafayette to America. But it was not in the 
character of his father's son that Francis Huger 
now rode into Charleston facing Lafayette in 

226 



The Cordial Southern Cities 

the coach; this honor, we will remember. Huger 
had won for himself, by his youthful attempt 
to free Lafayette from the Austrian prison of 
Olmiitz. It was just such an enterprise as La- 
fayette, at the same age, would have had the 
spirit to have attempted. Huger had joined a 
Dr. B oilman in a bold attempt to overcome La- 
fayette's guards when their prisoner went forth 
for a drive. The attempt was successful, though 
through a blunder Lafayette did not escape, but 
with his would-be rescuers was overtaken and 
conveyed back to his dungeon. Those days 
were long over. Francis Huger was now a com- 
fortable, middle-aged man who could smile with 
Lafayette over that other drive, so unlike the one 
they were now enjoying, which ended for them 
all in the prison of Olmiitz. 

For three March days Lafayette was in 
Charleston — days filled full with festivities in 
his honor. He had always loved the beautiful 
Southern city and had written of it years ago 



JVith Lafayette in America 

that the inhabitants were « as agreeable as his 
fancy had allowed him to imagine." He found 
them no less agreeable now. Surfeited as he 
must have been by this time with fetes, he could 
still feel the charm of that ball which Charles- 
ton gave him, in the theater whose pit had been 
covered over to accommodate the dancers. 

At the sound of a bugle he entered the room, 
and as everywhere the company went literally 
wild with joy. Again the ladies clapped their 
little hands within gloves stamped with the por- 
trait of Lafayette. Here as everywhere there 
was a throne prepared for his seat. What, then, 
could Charleston offer to her guest that other 
cities could not give as freely ? Only a night 
more beautiful than the North could ever boast, 
sweet with the odor of tropical blossoms, cool 
from the winds of the sea ; only the indelible re- 
membrance of having been the first city to wel- 
come Lafayette in his youth ; of having extended 
that welcome with such heartiness and such 

228 



The Cordial Southern Cities 

democratic simplicity that even the bounding 
expectations of nineteen years had been destined 
to a full and beautiful realization. One does not 
forget a first love ; Charleston was secure forever 
of a place in the heart of Lafayette. 

Lafayette left Charleston by sea to proceed 
to Savannah. As he had paused at Camden to 
lay a corner-stone for a hero's monument, he 
could do no less than promise Savannah to per- 
form for her a similar service. The heroes whom 
the city purposed to honor were Nathanael 
Greene, that general of the Revolution, next to 
Washington in military ability, and Count Pu- 
laski, that gallant Pole in American service who 
had died of wounds received in the siege of 
Savannah. Lafayette had been particularly at- 
tached to General Nathanael Greene. Their 
rank as major-generals during the v^ar of the 
Revolution had thrown them much in each 
other's society. They had both fought at 

229 



With Lafayette in America 

Brandy wine and at Monmouth ; they had both 
endured the hardships at Valley Forge. In that 
last hot campaign in the South it was Greene 
who had driven Cornwallis out of South Caro- 
lina into Virginia where Lafayette had penned 
up the English earl in Yorktown. The ballad- 
makers of the day had linked the generals' 
names jocosely : 

" Cornwallis led a country dance: 
The like was never seen, sir, 
Much retrograde and much advance, 
And all with General Greene, sir. 

" They rambled up and rambled down. 
Turned hands and off they run, sir. 
Our General Greene to Charlestown, 
The earl to Wilmington, sir. 

" Greene in the South then danced a set 
And got a mighty name, sir. 
Cornwallis jigged with young Fayette, 
But suffered in his fame, sir." 

But Greene, in spite of" the mighty name " 
which he had won, had been overcome five 

230 



The Cordial Southern Cities 

years after that last campaign by a foe greater 
than Cornwallis. A stroke of the sun brought 
him to his end in the forty-fourth year of his 
age. He had passed away on his estate near 
Savannah amidst wide mourning. 

And " young Fayette " was now an elderly 
man, traveling over the States where once 
Greene had fought, his years emphasized by 
the appellations of " venerable sir " and " aged 
warrior " which the youthful heads of delega- 
tions constantly used while addressing him. 
And so Lafayette, having arrived safely in Sa- 
vannah amidst the usual rejoicing, laid the cor- 
ner-stone for the monument for his old friend 
Greene. Perhaps he remembered as he did so 
that kind letter from Washington after Greene's 
death, wherein Washington had assured him 
of Greeners affectionate regard and sincere 
admiration. 

The speech Lafayette made on this occa- 
sion before the Masons, the militia, and the 

231 



JVith Lafayette in America 

school-children and other citizens who pressed 
about him, was, like all his speeches made on 
this great tour, brief, graceful, and appropriate. 

" The great and good man," he began, "to 
whose memory we this day pay a tribute of 
respect, of affection, and profound regret, ac- 
quired in our Revolutionary War a glory so 
true and so pure that even now the name of 
Greene recalls all the virtues, all the talents 
which can adorn the patriot, the statesman, 
and the general." 

When the stone was laid, Lafayette struck 
it three times with the mallet, and with further 
Masonic rites the ceremony of the laying of 
the corner-stone was concluded. A like cere- 
mony was immediately performed in another 
portion of the city where a corner-stone was 
laid for a monument to Pulaski. 

When the visit at Savannah was at an end, 
the Southern tour was continued, the party 
using the rivers and waterways when they 

232 



The Cordial Southern Cities 

could do so. The route to Augusta was by- 
water, but after some strenuous days there, La- 
fayette took to his carriage once more, driving 
to Milledgeville, thence to Macon, and from 
Macon to Montgomery, Alabama. The enter- 
tainments in his honor largely repeated them- 
selves through these successive towns, but 
between Montgomery and Mobile, a journey 
made partly by land and partly by water, the 
fetes suddenly underwent a sharp change. 
This was because the way of the travelers now 
led them through the reservation the Indians 
were then occupying along the Chattahoochee 
River and the Uchee and Line Creeks. 

Throughout the twenty-four States the ora- 
tors had repeatedly hailed Lafayette as the 
lover of freedom and of liberty. The red men 
knew these words to be true and that Lafa- 
yette carried his belief in the freedom of man 
so far that he made no distinction of race nor 
of color. They waited for him stolidly and sto- 

233 



TVith Lafayette in America 

ically, these red brothers of the forests, know- 
ing from tradition of his consistent kindness to 
Indians. The word had been passed through 
the tribes, down the generations, that he was 
the friend of the red man. 

We have some fine pen pictures of these 
forest scenes that now transpired : Lafayette in 
cabins with flames from great pine logs roar- 
ing up the chimney, with silent Indians sitting 
about him ; Lafayette crossing the streams with 
Indians breast-deep in the waters to mark for 
him the position of a submerged bridge; La- 
fayette watching the games and dances the In- 
dians devised for his amusement; Lafayette 
accompanied through the forests by long lines 
of the strange men with their grotesquely 
painted faces. No more clapping of little gloved 
hands here, no more trumpets, no more arches 
except those the trees made. There must have 
been rest for Lafayette and fresh enjoyment 
in these scenes. 

234 



The Cordial Southern Cities 

There were speeches, however, for the In- 
dians made their formal compliments to him 
as the white men had been doing. But it is 
to be recorded that it was left to an Indian to 
be the first not to remind the General of the 
changes the years had brought, but instead to 
assure him with rude grace : " Even the young- 
est among us will say to our descendants that 
they have touched your hand and seen your 
figure ; they will also behold you, for you are 
protected by the Great Spirit from the ravages 
of age — you may again defend us if we are 
attacked." 

At Montgomery the usual form of entertain- 
ment was awaiting Lafayette, and he sailed and 
drove from there to Mobile. At Mobile a fine 
ship awaited him which Louisiana had sent to 
carry him across the Gulf of Mexico to New 
Orleans. The crossing was a stormy one, but 
not so bad that the seasick victims were not on 
deck two days later to enjoy the spectacle of the 

235 



With Lafayette in America 

Father of Waters pouring into the ocean, La- 
vasseur finding the river more like a conqueror 
than a tributary of the sea. 

When Lafayette appeared on deck, the air 
was rent with cries of "Vive Lafayette!" and 
"Vive I'ami d' Amerique !" These cries came from 
men in the French uniform and the hearts of 
the three French travelers " beat with joy." 
Amid the thunder of artillery Lafayette disem- 
barked and gave himself up for several days to 
the enthusiasm of the population of French and 
American citizens. It rained during almost the 
entire visit, but this in no way seemed to lessen 
the transports of the people whenever the 
beloved General appeared. They crowded the 
public reception, they lined the streets, they 
packed the theater when it was known that 
he would be present at a performance. The free 
blacks waited upon him, certain of a welcome, 
for Lafayette hated and deplored slavery and had 
found it the one blot on his Southern welcome. 



The Cordial Southern Cities 

Now and then the interests of the mixed 
population of French and Americans conflicted. 
A performance at the theater being in order 
for the General's entertainment, the point arose 
whether he should attend the American or the 
French. Both factions were equally desirous 
of his presence. The General never found any 
difficulty in such situations. He promptly ac- 
cepted both invitations for the same evening, 
showing himself, after drawing of lots, first at 
the American theater to witness a tragedy 
founded on his own story called " The Pris- 
oner of Olmiitz," going from there to the 
French theater to see the comedy of" L'Ecole 
des Vieillards." It made little difi'erence whether 
comedy or tragedy was chosen for representa- 
tion, for upon his appearance the tumult was 
so great that the actors and the plays were for- 
gotten. And Lafayette had been arousing this 
sort of enthusiasm since the day when he first^ 
returned from France. 

237 



JVith Lafayette in America 

In each city he visited he received new 
proof of it, and in each city he found the occa- 
sion further to endear himself New Orleans 
was no exception. A quarrel had arisen there 
between the staff and the officers of the militia 
as to their prerogatives. Rumors of this dis- 
pute came to Lafayette. He might easily have 
turned a deaf ear to the squabble, but that was 
not his way. He loved peace and harmony. 
He had acted as mediator many times in his 
life. He did not hesitate to do so now. He 
called the disputants together in his house, and 
speaking to them with tact and kindness he 
brought about a perfect harmony. This fact be- 
coming known, the city was more eager than 
ever to pay him homage. 

Among the many who pressed forward to 
meet him we have a touching picture of one, 
an aged Spanish friar. Father Anthony, much 
loved in the city for his great services during 
yellow fever, who, upon seeing Lafayette, cried, 

238 



The Cordial Southern Cities 

in the spirit of Simeon of old, <*Omy son, I 
have found favor before the Lord since he has 
permitted me to see the worthiest apostle 
of liberty ! " 

Lafayette and his party left New Orleans on 
the morning of the 15 th of April. The levee 
was crowded with his new-made friends. The 
balconies and the very roof-tops were called 
upon to hold the throngs. He bowed his cordial 
farewell to the last, before embarking on the 
steamer that was now to take him to the frontier 
States of America. 

" Vive Lafayette ! Vive Lafayette ! '* cried 
New Orleans as the boat steamed slowly up the 
great river. 



CHAPTER VI 

The Frontier 

THE hospitality of Louisiana did not end 
with Lafayette^s farewell to New Orleans. 
The steamboat Natchez, which the State had 
sent to bring the nation^s guest from Mobile to 
New Orleans, was now put at his disposal to 
convey him up the great river to St. Louis. 

The voyage took the Natchez thirteen days, 
but this allowed Lafayette time to stop at Baton 
Rouge and Natchez, Mississippi, before he 
" bade farewell to the civilized world." The 
river in those days was a great thoroughfare ; 
boats of every description were noted by the 
travelers, among them the strange, rough "arks" 
that, laden with freight, floated down the cur- 
rent to be sold at the journey's end for lum- 
ber while the boatman patiently made his way 
homeward on foot. 

The long voyage to St. Louis passed very 
240 



The Frontier 

pleasantly for the travelers on board the Nat- 
chez in company with the committee from 
New Orleans who attended them, and the com- 
mittee from Mississippi who later joined the 
party. Louisiana geese sailed over their heads; 
wild deer swam by the boat. Now and then 
the vessel stopped for wood, and the travelers 
had a chance to look deep into the virgin for- 
ests that lined the shores. Sometimes as the 
steamboat picked its way up the river, the 
Captain pointed out treacherous snags that 
reached their gnarly fingers hungrily in the 
direction of the travelers who were thus made 
conscious that these enemies rendered river 
travel almost as dangerous as travel by sea. 
After the weary miles in carriages there was 
rest and relief in the long days on the great 
river. 

It was not until the evening of the 2 8 th of 
April that the Natchez anchored at Carondelet, 
a little village six or seven miles from St. Louis, 

241 



With Lafayette in America 

populated largely with Frenchmen. These 
poor village people, finding themselves unex- 
pectedly host to the man so many cities clam- 
ored to receive, shov^ed him honor by bring- 
ing such gifts as they had for his acceptance. 
A man on a steamboat might well have been 
embarrassed by the gift of a young fawn, to 
say nothing of a pair of tame geese. But La- 
fayette had not the heart to wound any one, 
least of all his countrymen struggling here on 
their small farms for a livelihood. " He there- 
fore hastened to accept them and return his 
acknowledgments." 

Carondelet sent word to St. Louis that her 
guest was at her door. The next morning the 
frontier welcomed Lafayette. He landed at the 
Market-House Square and was greeted, as he 
had been at New Orleans, by the cheers of both 
French and Americans. The Mayor of the city 
in his address welcomed the visitor formally 
to the " most distant point of the Republic." 

242 



The Frontier 

And Lafayette, in part, replied: "I have 
once more the satisfaction to see the descend- 
ants of France and the descendants of my 
American contemporaries mingled in the bless- 
ings of republican institutions, and in a com- 
mon devotion to the confederation and union, 
Sir, so essential not only to the fate of each 
member of the confederacy, but also to the 
general fate of mankind that the least breach 
of it vi^ould be hailed with barbarian joy by an 
universal v^ar-vi^hoop of European aristocracy 
and despotism." 

The word " war-whoop," which Lafayette in- 
troduced into his speech in " the most distant 
point of the Republic," indicated that the Gen- 
eral felt the need already of more extravagant 
language than he had hitherto used to express 
the emotions which the great forest-bordered 
river and the wild frontier aroused within his 
impressionable breast. The West undoubt- 
edly liked that word; they must have smiled 

243 



With Lafayette in America 

broadly when it fell from the Frenchman's 
lips ! 

The crowd now moved up Main Street. St. 
Louis might be on the frontier, but she had no 
mind to be distanced any more than needs must 
be by the East. There was a fine barouche, 
therefore, for the General drawn by four gray 
horses. Within the barouche the Mayor, an old 
soldier, and the founder of the city. Colonel 
Auguste Chouteau, sat with the General. The 
founder of the city was an interesting old man. 
His axe had cut the logs for the first house on 
the site of St. Louis. He had lived to see a city 
of six thousand souls settle about him. It was to 
the house of this old fur-trader*s son, Pierre 
Chouteau, that the barouche was conveying 
Lafayette. In the words of a contemporary 
newspaper the house was a «* spacious and 
elegant mansion.' ' Here the entire town was 
asked to assemble at the reception held for the 
General. How pleased Lafayette must have 

244 



The Frontier 

been to discover, among the sea of strange faces, 
a son of his old friend Alexander Hamilton ! 
He had a welcome, too, for the old soldier who 
had been sergeant under Rochambeau. 

The dinner the Chouteaus gave for Lafayette 
was at four o'clock. Among the guests was 
Governor Cole to remind Lafayette of his prom- 
ise to stop somewhere in Illinois. The Governor 
of the youngest of the twenty-four States was a 
young man after Lafayette's own heart, of line 
principles, good education, and accomplished 
address. His stand on the spread of slavery had 
elected him to his present office. He had met 
Lafayette during a great tour of Europe, so that 
they were not strangers when he made his toast 
at Pierre Chouteau's dinner, to " France, dear 
to our hearts from so many recollections, and 
above all for having given birth to Lafayette." 

Before Lafayette left the Chouteau table he 
raised his glass to his host's father, that ven- 
erable old man, first to settle in St. Louis. 

245 



With Lafayette in America 

Lafayette was constantly endearing himself in 
his travels by such thoughtful attentions, so that 
in the words of a frontier journal the people 
were not more ready to say at his arrival, " Wel- 
come, Lafayette ! " than they were to say at his 
departure, "God bless thee, Lafayette I " 

Lafayette bade farewell to the ** most distant 
point in the Republic** that same night after 
the ball the citizens of St. Louis gave him. He 
boarded the Natchez at midnight, in company 
with Governor Cole, to pay a brief visit in Illinois. 
He did not escape St. Louis without adding 
to his overwhelming collection of gifts. The 
steamboat that received the fawn and the geese 
must needs make room for calumets, bows, 
arrows, and dresses of the Missouri Indians. 
Lafayette accepted them all with becoming 
gratitude. In far-away La Grange they must 
often have served to recall that town that had 
sprung up in the wilderness so soon after the 
first blow of the axe of old Auguste Chouteau. 

246 



The Frontier 

On account of Lafayette's limited time it was 
advisable to stop only at such towns as bordered 
rivers. Lafayette, therefore, chose to stop in 
Illinois at the town of Kaskaskia. Though in 
the company of His Excellency, the Governor, 
the village did not expect him; but once the 
people knew that he was in their little town 
they gave him as hearty a welcome as any city 
could have done. 

Lafayette walked from the river to the house 
of Colonel Edgar, a patriot of the Revolution, 
where in the presence of the village people 
who crowded about, the Governor delivered a 
formal welcome. There was an ample dinner 
soon after at the tavern, which the newspaper 
described as not being surpassed " in variety 
or excellency in any other city in the Western 
country." The women in the brief time they 
had had to make ready had fashioned an arch 
over the hero's chair, " which presented the 
beautiful resemblance to a rainbow." " The 

247 



With Lafayette in America 

lovely creation of female hands," the editor of 
the " Intelligencer " called it. Later in the day 
Kaskaskia managed a ball where Lafayette, it 
is said, led the grand march. 

In each hamlet, town, and city that the Gen- 
eral visited on his tour there was, of course, 
much repetition in his entertainment. A ball, a 
Masonic dinner, a reception, and usually a re- 
view of the militia were inevitable, but it is to be 
noted that the States differed widely enough, so 
that, as a rule, each one offered, usually quite 
unconsciously, some novelty of entertainment 
that kept Lafayette and his party from feeling 
any tedium. Kaskaskia with its ball and its 
hasty banquet had a greater surprise in store. 

There were many Indians in the village, who 
stood about the doors of the tavern and stared 
hard at the great visitor, their painted faces and 
nude bodies adding a touch of novelty to the 
scene greater than any floral arch that « lovely 
female hands " could erect. Among the Indians 

248 



The Frontier 

was one, a Christian girl, reared by the Menard 
family, and christened « Mary," who related 
a story to Lavasseur that filled him with inter- 
est. This girPs father, a chief, had handed to 
her when dying his son^s most precious pos- 
session, a letter which he told her would always 
gain friends for her among the white men. This 
the girl had worn for years about her neck in 
a little bag. She displayed the letter to Lavas- 
seur with pride. He saw to his astonishment 
that it was a letter from Lafayette, dated '< Al- 
bany, 1784." In this note the civil young 
Marquis had thanked the Indian chief, with his 
customary courtesy, for services to the white 
men. When Lavasseur repeated this incident 
to Lafayette, the General was eager to make the 
acquaintance of this girl, so Lavasseur per- 
suaded Mary to come to the scene of the ball. 
Mary was now the wife of an Indian chief, 
having gone back to the life of her people, so 
Lavasseur was obliged to fetch her from her 

249 



JVith Lafayette in America 

camp. She was woman enough to be unwilling 
to present herself in her rough clothes, so that 
in the end it was Lafayette who came to Mary, 
not Mary to Lafayette. Lavasseur led the girl 
to a lower room in the house where the ball was 
held, and here Lafayette met her, unfolding his 
own worn letter which he had written in his 
youth and reading it with astonishment. He 
conversed with the girl for some time, and re- 
lated to those who clustered about them many 
tales of the fidelity of those Indians who had 
supported the Americans in the Revolution. 

At midnight he again embarked on the 
steamboat that was to pause but once more in 
Illinois. 

Before the boat reached Shawneetown for 
its last stop in the State, the party had gone up 
the Cumberland to Nashville, Tennessee, where 
Andrew Jackson shared the honors with Lafa- 
yette. Shawneetown, that Illinois village which 
they reached the 8 th of May, is situated at the 

250 



The Frontier 

point where the Wabash joins the Ohio River. 
The great rivers before it, the great forests be- 
hind it, must have given the place, seen in the 
blue light of breaking day, a sense of v^ildness 
and isolation. It was in May when the blossoms 
were out in a mist of pink and white, when the 
mistletoe could be seen clinging to the tall trees 
that probably the river had, as usual in the 
spring, slightly inundated. The party of French- 
men must have wondered that Governor Cole 
should have asked them to pause at a spot so 
small and so remote. But the people of Shaw- 
neetown were grateful to him for his remem- 
brance of their village. They must have ex- 
pected the visit, for a salute of twenty-four 
rounds was fired as the travelers walked up the 
street to the tavern. Early as it was, a large 
number of ladies were already assembled there. 
Judge Hall, of the Circuit Court, made the 
address of welcome in the old-fashioned orator- 
ical style of his day : 

251 



With Lafayette in America 

" What shall we call thee who have so many- 
titles to our affection ?" we hear him ask as we 
turn the sere old leaves of newspapers of the 
day. "We hail thee by every name dear to 
freemen — Lafayette — friend — father — fel- 
low citizen patriot — soldier — philanthropist 

— we bid thee welcome." 

Shawneetown, hovering on the banks of two 
great rivers, had so thin a past that she could 
not hope to stir within the breast of her guest 
a single association ; among her citizens there 
does not seem to have been found even the usual 
old soldier of the Revolution. The orator then 
must find his inspiration in Shawneetown's very 
crudeness and youth. 

*« The little community which has the honor 
to-day of paying a small tribute to republican 
virtues was not in existence at the period when 
that virtue was displayed in behalf of our coun- 
try. You find us dwelling in a spot which was 
then untrodden by the foot of civilized man, 

252 



The Frontier 

in the midst of forests whose silent echoes 
were not awakened by the tumult of that day. 
There is no sensible object here to recall your 
deeds to memory, but they dwell in our bos- 
oms, they are imprinted upon monuments 
more durable than brass," 

And of Illinois the orator had to say : «« You 
find our State in its infancy, our country thinly 
populated, our people destitute of the luxuries 
and elegancies of life. In your reception we 
depart not from the domestic simplicity of a 
sequestered people. We erect no triumphal 
arches, we oiTer no exotic delicacies. We re- 
ceive you to our humble dwellings and our 
homely fare ; we take you to our arms and to 
our hearts." 

And then Shawneetown, having shown her- 
self sufficiently humble before the visitors from 
the great world that lay so far from the junc- 
tion of the Ohio and the Wabash, escorted the 
General to the hotel, where after a brief recep- 

253 



With Lafayette in America 

tion they seated him at " a handsome collation " 
before he again walked down the village street 
to the waiting steamboat. 

After leaving Shawneetown the party of 
travelers proceeded rapidly up the Ohio, the 
plan being to stop next at Louisville. But, as 
Lafayette had once written of an early journey 
in his youth, " Running very fast is not always 
the best way of arriving very soon.'^ Before he 
was to reach Louisville the steamboat on which 
he traveled was to be wrecked upon one of 
the great snags in the river. This sad interrup- 
tion to his voyage, detailed in an earlier chap- 
ter, resulted in no greater loss than that of 
some baggage. The party reached Louisville 
in safety, and after a brief visit there and 
at Jeffersonville, Indiana, they abandoned the 
river and began a journey to Cincinnati by 
carriage. Cincinnati, even in that early day, 
was a large and prosperous city of eighteen 
thousand inhabitants, so that with Lafayette's 

254 



The Frontier 

arrival there he may have been said to have left 
the frontier behind. 

As he journeys in his carriage through Ken- 
tucky on his way to Ohio, let us stop with him 
at Lexington to enjoy one last day in the 
"Western country" of the United States in 
1825. The party had spent the night, after a 
long day's drive, near Lexington, and were 
escorted into that little city of six thousand peo- 
ple about noon of the follow^ing day. The 
waiting people must have rejoiced when a 
heavy rain ceased and a cloudy sky cleared as 
if by magic the moment the first cannon an- 
nounced that Lafayette had entered the town. 

The windows as usual were filled with wel- 
coming faces, and in the words of the press, 
the faces " were lighted up with joy to greet 
the arrival of the Hero and Sage." In turning 
to the newspapers for descriptions of Lafa- 
yette's great tour we are constantly disap- 
pointed to find the editors giving their space 

255 



With Lafayette in America 

to detailed descriptions of the celebrations in 
Lafayette's honor rather than to any pen pic- 
tures of Lafayette himself But from the pen 
of the correspondent of Lexington we catch a 
glimpse of the city's guest : 

"Never did any countenance beam with 
more benevolence, a more sacred sympathy 
than that of the good old man as he cast his 
eyes by turns from side to side and witnessed 
the spontaneous gratitude of so many of the 
sons and daughters of liberty." 

Lafayette and his party may well have ex- 
pected the welcome they received in Lexing- 
ton, for the smallest hamlet in the Republic had 
greeted them with joy and enthusiasm. Neither 
could they have been surprised by the recep- 
tion or the address of welcome, for even Shaw- 
neetown had its orator. The old soldier who 
pushed forward to show his powder-horn taken 
from the British had his counterpart in many 
other places. The surprise which Lexington 

256 



The Frontier 

had in store for her guest was what the press 
called, in its local pride, ** the literary repast ' ' 
at the university. For Kentucky, even then, had 
a university where the young men of the State 
received a good education. In proof of this the 
university gave Lafayette " the literary repast." 

Visits to universities in America were no 
novelty to Lafayette; he had visited Harvard, 
Yale, the University of Virginia, and the 
Military Academy at West Point ; yet at none 
of these institutions of learning did the pu- 
pils glory in their accomplishments as did the 
young men from the South and the West in 
the frontier town of Lexington. Throughout 
the entire celebration in honor of their guest 
there was a buoyancy and a naivete that must 
have charmed and amused the man who at the 
age of these boys had had so much enthusiasm 
himself. 

Upon Lafayette's arrival at the university, 
President Holly met him at the chapel door 

257 



With Lafayette in America 

and led him to a sofa. A pamphlet was then 
distributed among the guests containing original 
pieces by the students which the press, in its 
due regard for local love of recognition, de- 
scribed as a "fine example of Western typog- 
raphy as well as of Western literature and 
taste." Then the " literary entertainment " be- 
gan. A young man read an original ode in 
English which was followed by an address in 
French by a youth from New Orleans. He was 
followed by a young man who addressed La- 
fayette in Latin in the form of an ode. Then 
came another English ode, followed by still 
another Latin ode, and yet again an English 
ode. 

Lafayette replied to the ambitious young 
speakers "in a manner that proved that the 
three languages were equally familiar to him, 
and that his heart was deeply moved by the 
expression of their youthful patriotism." 

The joy of the press in the whole affair was 
258 



The Frontier 

as unconfined as that of the students. One jour- 
nal stated proudly, with no more braggadocio 
than was to be looked for in a country so lately 
claimed from the wilderness : " Such a literary 
reception has not, as far as we remember, been 
given Lafayette in any college of the country/* 
Before we take the carriage with Lafayette 
again, for the long, hard journey onward, we 
have just time for the ball Lexington gave in 
a building not yet quite finished, where two 
rooms were fitted up hastily, with extraordinary 
effort. The General entered the room at nine 
o'clock and was later seated for supper before 
a " large castellated cake, surmounted with an 
American flag and covered with appropriate 
devices." Between the supper-room and the 
dancing-hall we cannot pass unmoved the great 
transparency of Daniel Boon, holding a gun in 
his hand and leaning against a tree as if Ken- 
tucky, even in these days of sophisticated joy, 
wished to say that she did not forget that old 

259 



With Lafayette in America 

hunter who had made Lexington possible. At 
midnight the General retired to indulge, as the 
press surmised, " in those thoughts and feelings 
which occupy the mind of such a benevolent 
man and which must consecrate his days to 
peace and happiness." 

It is more likely, however, that the " benev- 
olent man " indulged in few thoughts after such 
crowded days, but allowed his faithful valet 
Bastien to help him to sink to rest, on the bed 
Kentucky had prepared for him, as quickly as 
possible. 



CHAPTER VII 

In the Cradle of American Liberty 

IF we turn to the files of the Boston press in 
August, 1824, we shall come across this 
advertisement, repeated several days in succes- 
sion : 

«< Likeness of General Lafayette, engraved 
by J. V. N. Troop Esq., printed on Satin, in- 
tended to be worn as a compliment to the Gen- 
eral. They are printed to answer for Belts and 
Watch Ribbons. Military Companies can be 
supplied with any number at the shortest no- 
tice. J. W. Goodrich, 3 State Street." 

A notice that, of course, heralded a visit to 
Boston by Lafayette. 

Perhaps no one of the other cities had pleas- 
anter recollections of Lafayette, the youth, than 

261 



With Lafayette in America 

the old New England city. Lafayette had been 
in Boston many times in the early days, some- 
times on business there for the army, sometimes 
on business elsewhere, pausing in Boston for 
brief hours. After his severe illness at Fishkill, 
as he had written in his memoirs, «< he had re- 
paired to Boston on horseback, where his health 
was restored by Madeira wine.*' He had sailed 
from that port for his furlough in France ; had 
landed here on his return, penning a joyous 
note to Washington in the harbor, hinting at 
the great news he brought with him — of the 
sure coming of French troops. He had visited 
the city again in 1784. 

The year 1824 was not so far distant from 
those days but that many Boston citizens could 
remember the *« Marquis." It was a foregone 
conclusion that the city would give him a deco- 
rous welcome. 

The particular occasion of Lafayette's visit 
at this time was the commencement at Cam- 

262 



Cradle of American Liberty 

bridge, held, at that time, in August. In order 
to be on time for this occasion Lafayette was 
obliged to drive rapidly from New York. The 
constant attentions of the multitudes along the 
way delayed his progress so much that the 
journey consumed five days. In the end he 
was obliged to drive by night, nodding in his 
carriage, in order to be in Cambridge for the 
2 5 th of August. He did not reach the mansion 
of Governor Eustis in Roxbury, where he was 
to rest, until the wan hour of two o'clock on 
the morning of the 25 th. The Governor was 
a fine old man, with a bush of gray hair that 
stood out under the three-cornered beaver which 
he wore on state occasions, ** giving him a truly 
venerable appearance." He had been a regi- 
mental surgeon during the Revolution and had 
known the young French General very well, so 
that he could cry with honest enthusiasm, when 
Lafayette alighted at his door : " Oh, this is 
the happiest day of my life ! " 

263 



With Lafayette in America 

After little more than two hours* sleep the 
festivities of the day began; for at daybreak 
companies of light infantry began maneuver- 
ing under the General's windows. Later in the 
morning Mayor Quincy and a military escort 
bore the visitor off to Boston for the parade 
that was to accompany his entrance into the 
city. Down the narrow, old streets the long 
procession wound, just as other processions 
wind to-day. The houses were gay with bunt- 
ing, with French and American flags, the win- 
dows and balconies and streets lined with the 
multitudes. 

From one of the balconies on Washington 
Street a lady leaned forth whom Boston, at 
that time, knew for the wife of General Scott ; 
but to Lafayette, glancing up and recognizing 
her she was still Dorothy Quincy Hancock, 
who, as the wife of John Hancock, had enter- 
tained him in the Hancock mansion years ago. 
Thereupon he rose to his feet in his carriage 

264 







l^r^ 



■Si 









Cradle of American Liberty 

and, placing his hand over his gallant French 
heart, he made the lady a very low bov^, a com- 
pliment w^hich could not have failed to please 
her, and an incident which Oliver Wendell 
Holmes might well have added to his poem in 
praise of" Dorothy Q^" 

Of course Boston had her triumphal arches 
as New York had had, and even in that early 
day she had her poets. Chief among them was 
Charles Sprague, a young man who by popu- 
lar acclaim was the city's laureate. These words 
from his pen decorated an arch in front of 
Lafayette's hotel : 

"The fathers in glory shall sleep 

That gathered with thee to the fight; 
But the sons will eternally keep 
The tablet of gratitude bright. 
We bow not the neck, we bend not the knee, 
But our hearts, Lafayette, we surrender to thee." 

It was natural that Sprague should find in- 
spiration for his verse in patriotic occasions, for 
his father had been one of the men who had 

265 



JVith Lafayette in America 

helped dump England's tea into the harbor. 
He was to be called upon again for verse in 
celebration of Lafayette at one of the banquets 
given the hero before he left Boston, where the 
poet responded with the spirited lines : 

" Wake a deed of other days, 
Swell the song of lofty praise, 
Gratitude's bright goblet raise, 
Pledged to Lafayette! 
Him who left his own fair land 
By your fathers' sides to stand 
When oppression's guilty hand 
In their blood was wet: — 

Never may your hearts forget 
Freemen's duty. Freemen's debt. 
Fill the cup to Lafayette 
Pledge your fathers' friend." 

The long parade had commenced at Rox- 
bury with an address by Mayor Quincy. It 
closed in the Senate Chamber with an address 
by the Governor. Lafayette had said, in part, 
in reply to the Mayor : " The emotions which I 

266 



Cradle of American Liberty 

have been accustomed to feel on entering this 
city, have ever mingled with a sense of religious 
reverence for the cradle of American — let us 
hope it will hereafter be said — of Universal 
Liberty." 

To Governor Eustis, his old and affectionate 
friend of the Revolution, he could say : " Sir, I 
am delighted with what I see. I am oppressed 
with what I feel, but I depend upon you as an 
old friend to do justice to my sentiments." 

The State House — " the new State House " 
as it was still called — was in the midst of pleas- 
ant residences. On the right still stood the 
beautiful old house of John Hancock, where 
Lafayette had once visited. At the corner of 
Beacon and Park Streets, almost opposite, stood 
the house that was given to him for his residence 
during the week of his Boston visit. 

A crowded week it proved to be, with every 
imaginable form of entertainment: morning 
receptions at the State House ; a levee ; balls ; 

267 



TVith Lafayette in America 

banquets; private visits; a review of the militia 
on the Common ; a visit to the Military Camp 
at Savin Hill, where to the delight of the spec- 
tators, Lafayette fired a piece of artillery at a 
floating target, knocking it to pieces. 

In addition to all these entertainments that 
must have kept staid Boston busy, there were 
the Cambridge commencement exercises, where 
the young men who read essays made compli- 
mentary references to the guest upon the plat- 
form, while the members of Phi Beta Kappa 
broke the rules of their fraternity and invited 
Lafayette and his party to be present at their 
annual celebration and banquet. Upon this oc- 
casion the oration was given by a young man 
in his thirtieth year, Edward Everett, that pol- 
ished scholar and gentleman whom the world 
was to know so well as statesman and patriot. 
His address closed, of course, with a peroration 
to Lafayette : <* Welcome, friend of our fathers, 
to our shore. Happy are our eyes that behold 

268 



Cradle of American Liberty 

those venerable features. Enjoy a triumph such 
as never monarch enjoyed — the assurance that 
throughout America there is not a bosom which 
does not beat with joy and gratitude at the sound 
of your name." 

At the banquet of the fraternity we see La- 
fayette arise in the midst of the bright-faced 
band to toast " The Young Generation,'^ while 
George Lafayette, that modest, unassuming 
son, always so willing to dwell in his father's 
shadow, raises his glass to say : " The happi- 
ness I feel in being in a free country where 
great recollections and great examples remind 
me of the duty of a patriot's son." 

Lavasseur is not less complimentary. With 
a smile in the General's direction, he gives : 
" To the grateful recollection I shall ever enter- 
tain of the free people among whom I every 
day exclaim, * A great man's friendship is a boon 
from Heaven.' " 

But the new generation whom Lafayette 
269 



With Lafayette in America 

toasted that night so graciously could not hope 
to have the place in his heart held by those old 
soldiers of the Revolution who had fought in 
his companies, and who from time to time at 
the public receptions pressed forward to show 
him the scars of old wounds, sure of his re- 
membrance and ready sympathy. 

" Oh, my brave light infantry !" he was con- 
stantly exclaiming, the tears streaming down 
his kindly face. « Oh, my gallant troops ! " For 
these old men were once the lads of whom La- 
fayette had written : " These three battalions 
are the best troops that ever took the field. My 
confidence in them is unbounded. They are 
far superior to any British troops and none 
will ever venture to meet them in equal num- 
bers." 

When the week in Boston came to an end, 
Lafayette had already promised to return again 
in the following year, to be present at the lay- 
ing of the corner-stone of Bunker Hill Monu- 

270 



Cradle of American Liberty 

ment; and throughout all the great journey 
through the South and the West that intervened 
before his return, Bunker Hill was ever, as he 
later could tell the legislators of Massachusetts, 
" his polar star." 

He reached Boston after strenuous travel 
down the Erie Canal and by carriage, on the 
morning of the 1 5 th of June, 1825, to the joy 
of the thousands of people who had poured 
into Boston in the hope of seeing him. Though 
less than a year had passed since Lafayette's 
former visit. Governor Eustis was no longer 
here to welcome him with that cry of friend- 
ship, ** To-day I am the happiest man alive." 
He had died in the February before Lafayette's 
coming, and it was his successor, Levi Lin- 
coln, who welcomed the General after his long 
journey. 

Among the members of Congress in Wash- 
ington, to whom Lafayette was indebted for a 

271 



JVith Lafayette in America 

princely gift, bestowed upon him in the Na- 
tion's name, were James Lloyd and Daniel 
Webster, one of whom represented the State 
in the Senate, the other in the House. On his 
second coming to Boston, Lafayette was enter- 
tained by Senator Lloyd, on Beacon Street, and 
he shared the honors of the Bunker Hill cele- 
bration with the great Webster. 

In the procession which started on the morn- 
ing of June 1 7 to Monument Square in Charles- 
town, winding through Park and Common, 
School and Washington Streets, the attention 
of the old city must have been divided between 
Lafayette and Webster, though they did not 
drive in the same carriage. Lafayette, as the 
guest of honor, had his usual coach and four ; 
Webster as the President of the Monument 
Association, drove with other members of that 
organization. 

The rites at the monument were conducted 
by the Masons, and here we behold «* Brother 

272 



Cradle of American Liberty 

Lafayette" in the Masonic apron, trowel in 
hand. When the Masonic rites were over and 
salutes had been fired, the company moved to 
an amphitheater at the foot of the hill, to listen 
to the exercises of the day. From this time on 
the powerful figure of Webster commands the 
scene. We see him rise to make the address, 
facing that great throng of spectators with the 
sun full in his face. Lafayette, ever thoughtful 
of others, beckons him to stand back in the 
shadow, but Webster shakes his lion^s head and 
places himself where the crowd can best hear 
his great voice. 

Before he had well started, a great com- 
motion arose when some of the seats col- 
lapsed. The orator ordered the ushers to restore 
order. 

"It is imposssible to do so,*' one of them 
whispered. 

" Nothing is impossible, sir I " said Web- 
ster. *< Let it be done ! " 

^11 



With Lafayette in America 

And not until it was done did he attempt 
to roll his sonorous sentences over the crowd. 
Since the hour that he had known of Lafa- 
yette's coming, he had labored over the pero- 
ration that he knew the crowd would expect 
him to make to the guest of honor, so that 
though the address was mainly to the forty old 
soldiers who had fought at Bunker Hill, and 
who looked expectantly up into his face, one 
of them clutching the drum he had carried in 
the war, yet at last the orator turned to Lafa- 
yette with the words that began : 

" The information of these events, circulat- 
ing through Europe, reached the ears of one 
who now hears me. He has not forgotten the 
emotion which the fame of Bunker Hill and 
the fame of Warren excited in his youthful 
breast. ..." 

Perhaps in that day there was no finer orator 
in America than Webster, unless it was Henry 
Clay of Kentucky. Who there would have 

274 



Cradle of American Liberty 

missed the sight of the man, with his com- 
manding stature, his large head, and noble 
brow, or missed the sound of his wonderful 
voice, as it rolled on and on in that famous ad- 
dress ? There were of necessity, however, many 
in that large assembly outside the range of even 
that voice. These were gratified by being able 
to buy the oration in good print within half an 
hour of its conclusion, for Boston, with a ce- 
lerity that might have done justice to Chicago 
had Chicago been born, had the address taken 
down by shorthand, provided boys to run to 
and from the printer^s with the successive 
sheets, with the result that the pamphlet was 
for sale on the hill almost before the reverberat- 
ing notes of Webster's voice had died. 

After the great oration, a goodly choir sang 
a hymn to the tune of" Old Hundred." Each 
city during Lafayette's journey struck at some 
time a characteristic note. Was it not the true 
voice of Boston that Lafayette now heard, ris- 

27s 



JVith Lafayette in America 

ing and falling solemnly, in the notes of the 
old tune, to the words : 

"Oh, is not this a holy spot? 
'T is the high place of Freedom's birth. 
God of our fathers is it not 
The holiest spot of all the earth?" 

After the choir had concluded their singing, 
four thousand persons sat down to a banquet 
on Bunker Hill, served under a shelter which had 
been erected for the occasion. The popular cus- 
tom, of course, demanded formal toasts. The one 
to Lafayette was greeted with the enthusiasm 
his name could always inspire. In his reply we 
catch the high note of faith and hope that kept 
him young : " Bunker Hill and the holy resist- 
ance to oppression which has already enfran- 
chised the American hemisphere — the next 
Half Century^s Jubilee toasts shall be, * To En- 
franchised Europe.' " 

In these public celebrations of the day, we 
are all free to look and listen. It is not so easy 

276 



Cradle of American Liberty 

to follow the guest of Boston to the many pri- 
vate parties that were given in his honor. How 
gladly we would be a guest at the ball at Dan- 
iel Webster^s on Summer Street, or call with 
Lafayette in those charming old Boston homes 
on Beacon Hill where he found time to pay his 
respects. The door closes upon him for us as 
he enters the house of Mrs. George Ticknor on 
Common Street, as it does again when he pays 
his respects to Madame Humphrey on Mount 
Vernon Street, « the relict of his friend and 
companion in arms. General H." Nor can we 
pass with him " the residue of the evening at 
Mrs. Richard Derby's on Chestnut Street." 

We can only guess that these private visits 
contributed to make the last visit in Boston as 
delightful to Lafayette as other such visits in his 
youth must have been, visits which had inspired 
him to write to Washington in the long, long 
ago the words Boston may well cherish : <* I 
have received every mark of aiFection in Boston 

'^11 



With Lafayette in America 

and am much attached to the town to which 
I owe so many obligations." 

It is characteristic of Boston and Boston* s 
friendship that these words, written in 1 7 8 i , 
could have been applied with equal truth to the 
Boston Lafayette now visited, some forty-four 
years later. 

A few days afterwards Lafayette bade the city 
of his affection a final farewell. Then Boston set- 
tled down to the humdrum of every day, but not 
until she had first granted to the forty survivors 
of Bunker Hill who had attended the celebra- 
tion " three dollars each and one dollar for each 
twenty miles' travel," endowed with which sum 
and the memory of having heard Webster and 
seen Lafayette, the old soldiers went back to 
their dreams. 



CHAPTER VIII 

In the City of Washington 

WE have followed Lafayette on his travels 
through the East, the South and the 
" Western country " w^ithout having seen him in 
Washington, the city that knew^ him best. He 
came here first in October, 1824, immediately 
after his visit to Philadelphia. Thence he went 
to Baltimore and Yorktown returning to the 
Capital to spend the greater part of the winter, 
starting from there in his carriage in February, 
1825, to visit the South and the West. After 
that great journey had drawn to its triumphal 
close and he had paid farewell visits to various 
Eastern cities, it was to Washington that he re- 
turned, embarking on the Potomac a few weeks 
later for France. We shall see Lafayette against 
the background of the Capital, therefore, in 
a series of pictures some of them separated in 
time by many months. 

279 



With Lafayette in America 

when he arrived first in Washington, in 
October of 1 8 24, James Monroe occupied the 
White House and it was to Monroe that Lafa- 
yette hastened to pay his respects. The meeting 
was of a simplicity that astonished Lafayette^s 
secretary, for whom the young Republic had 
so many other surprises in store. The door of 
the one-story White House was opened by a 
single domestic, who ushered them into the 
hall of audience where Monroe was seated in 
an ordinary chair in a semicircle comprising the 
four officers of the Cabinet and dignitaries of 
the army, navy, and legislative body. The Presi- 
dent arose, as did all the others, upon La- 
fayette's entrance, and Monroe embraced the 
guest with the affection of one who had known 
him for many years, addressing him in the 
character of old friend rather than that of dis- 
tinguished visitor. 

The Eighteenth Congress was not in session 
upon that first visit to Washington, and it was 

280 



In the City of Washington 

not until the following December that Lafa- 
yette was received, with great cordiality, by that 
body, which embraced within its circle Andrew 
Jackson and Martin Van Buren, among the 
Senators, and Daniel Webster and Henry Clay 
among the Representatives. The great orator 
from Kentucky was Speaker of the House, so 
that it fell to him to make the address of wel- 
come. 

Let us imagine Henry Clay, therefore, while 
the House and visiting Senate stand at atten- 
tion, turning to General Lafayette, who has just 
entered with an escort of forty-one Representa- 
tives, and beginning : 

« General : The House of Representatives 
of the United States, impelled alike by its own 
feeling and those of the whole American people, 
could not have assigned to me a more gratify- 
ing duty than that of being its organ to present 
to you cordial congratulations upon the occa- 
sion of your recent arrival in the United States.*' 

281 



JVith Lafayette in America 

The speech was a brief one, as if Henry- 
Clay realized that it was not he, but Lafayette, 
who was the central figure upon this occasion. 
He was content to review the well-known serv- 
ices of the guest of the Nation and to congrat- 
ulate him upon enjoying the privilege given to 
few of revisiting the scenes of past action. 

«« The vain wish has sometimes been indulged 
that Providence would allow the patriot to re- 
turn to his country after death," said Henry- 
Clay, " and to contemplate the intermediate 
changes that have taken place. . . . General, 
your present visit to the United States is the 
realization of the consoling object of that wish. 
You are in the midst of posterity ! " 

The Speaker's reference to the passing of 
time must have served to remind Lafayette of 
the role of sage in which he was now irrevoca- 
bly cast. On his former visit he had been, for 
all the world that was now so fast slipping 
away, a romantic and impetuous youth. 

282 



In the City of Washington 

How still the room was as he rose to reply ! 
How clearly he spoke in spite of that unmis- 
takable accent of the foreign-born ! 

"My obligations to the United States, Sir, 
far exceed any merit I can claim. They date 
from the time when I had the happiness to be 
adopted as a young soldier, a favored son of 
America." And before his close he touched 
with grace upon Clay^s not altogether happy 
allusion to a return from the dead. " No, Mr. 
Speaker, posterity has not begun for me, since 
in the sons of my companions and friends I 
find the same public feelings, and permit me 
to add, the same feelings in my behalf, which 
I have had the happiness to experience in their 
fathers." And with *< lively gratitude, affection- 
ate devotion, and profound respect" for the 
assembly before him, Lafayette concluded. 

And then the Speaker, the Senators, and 
the Representatives came forward to take 
his hand. Among them we see again Andrew 

283 



With Lafayette in America 

Jackson, Daniel Webster, and Martin Van 
Buren. 

Monroe had just sent his message to this 
session of Congress outlining his doctrine of 
America for Americans without foreign inter- 
ference which was to perpetuate his name. In 
this same message was a request that Congress 
should make some provision for General Lafa- 
yette in view of " his very important services, 
losses, and sacrifices." The next scene in our 
Washington panorama, therefore, is that of the 
Eighteenth Congress taking action upon the 
President's request. 

During the time of the debates upon the 
bill, Lafayette fortunately was not in Washing- 
ton, having gone for a brief visit to Annapolis. 
The delicacy which would have prevented Lafa- 
yette, had he been in Washington, from hearing 
the legislators discuss the form the " provision" 
should take, is not shared by the student of the 
past, so that we may lean from the gallery of 

284 



In the City of Washington 

the Senate and of the House and listen freely 
to the discussion aroused by the bill upon its 
presentation in December. I predict, however, 
that from the first our sympathy will be with 
those gallant oratorical Southerners who whole- 
heartedly endorsed the proposed gift and that 
we shall turn but a cold ear to those prudent 
members from other States who raised tech- 
nical objections. 

Among the first of the Southerners to 
champion this bill is Senator Robert Y. Hayne, 
of South Carolina, who reviews Lafayette's 
great services to the United States, reminding 
his listeners that if they wish to reckon those 
services in terms of pounds, shillings, and pence, 
they must not forget the sum of $140,000 
which Lafayette expended from his private for- 
tune for the American service during the Rev- 
olution, in addition to his services and his 
blood; nor must they overlook the incident, 
little known, of his having relinquished a valu- 

285 



With Lafayette in America 

able grant of land near the city of New Orleans 
when he discovered that Congress, in ignorance 
of his title, had deeded a portion of this same 
land to that city and to reclaim it would make 
it necessary for him to bring suit. 

In the House other Southerners were equally 
eloquent : Mr. Livermore, from Louisiana, 
speaks eloquently on the merits of the bill ; 
Mr. McDuffie, of South Carolina, and Mr. 
Mangum, of North Carolina, voiced their indig- 
nation against those members scattered through 
the States, but largely hailing from Ohio, who 
quibble at the largeness of the sum or the haste 
with which the bill is being rushed through, 
or who quarrel with the impulse that gave rise 
to the proposed donation. In this champion- 
ship the Southern members are supported by 
Mr. Bartlett, of New Hampshire. 

It is pleasant to hear those long-forgotten 
voices of the past ring out chivalrously through 
the Senate Chamber and the House in behalf 

286 



In the City of Washington 

of the gift for Lafayette. The oratorical indig- 
nation of George McDufEe, of South Carolina, 
rises high at the thought of treating the free 
gift as a debt to be paid. «< Put it upon that 
footing and I shall vote against the bill ; put it 
on that footing and General Lafayette would 
disdain your offer of payment. Did he render 
those services and make those disbursements 
upon any calculation of future retribution?" 

Ichabod Bartlett, of New Hampshire, is un- 
willing to press the bill against an opposition 
which if persevered in must operate to take 
away all the " grace of our gratuity." 

Charles F. Mercer, of Virginia, reminds 
them that if Lafayette were disposed to sub- 
stantiate his claim upon the United States, it 
would exceed a million of dollars, and adds with 
true eloquence in answer to the plea for delay : 
"When I look back to the early period of our 
independence and behold our own unrecog- 
nized ministers in France, with a tenderness 

287 



With Lafayette in America 

which does them immortal honor, remonstrat- 
ing with the young enthusiast on the hazard 
and helplessness of his projected enterprise in 
our behalf; when I hear them, in a tone of 
generous remonstrance, tell him that our cause 
was sinking and that they had not even a vessel 
to oiTer him for his perilous voyage, and hear 
him reply, * I have no time, then, to lose,' I can- 
not, turning from that scene to this, bring my- 
self to believe that gentlemen who differ from 
the obvious majority of this House need to rest 
three nights upon their pillow before they arrive 
at unanimity upon the bill." 

When the bill finally came to a third read- 
ing, the Senate voted yea unanimously. In the 
House the nays came to twenty-six in all, four- 
teen of which were from the State of Ohio. 
A committee was soon appointed which an- 
nounced to Lafayette upon the day following 
his return to the Capital, the passage of the 
Act giving him $200,000 "in compensation 

288 







^ 










Vr 




In the City of Washington 

for his important services and expenditures 
during the American Revolution. *' 

In reply to their spokesman, Lafayette said 
in part : " The immense and unexpected gift 
which, in addition to former and considerable 
bounties, it has pleased Congress to confer upon 
me, calls for the w^armest acknowledgment of 
an old American soldier and adopted son of the 
United States — two titles dearer to my heart 
than all the treasures of the world." 

The gratification which Lafayette must have 
felt in this substantial proof of his popularity 
in America was shared generally by the press, 
but while, on the one hand, the editors of the 
journals voiced their approbation of the gift, 
on the other hand, they strongly censured the 
men whose opposition had prevented the act 
passing unanimously. The twenty-six members, 
in their distress, waited upon General Lafayette 
to make it clear to him that their opposition to 
the bill was of a technical and not of a personal 

289 



With Lafayette in Afnerica 

nature. How graciously the guest of the Nation 
listened to their explanation ! How ready was 
his reply ! Taking them cordially by the hand, 
he said affably : « I can assure you that if I had 
had the honor of being your colleague, we 
should have been twenty-seven, not only be- 
cause I partake of the sentiments which deter- 
mined your votes, but also because I think the 
American Nation has done too much for me." 

** This reply," says Lavasseur, "appeared in 
all the journals, and, as may be supposed, only 
added to the popularity of him who made it." 
If Lafayette possessed, as Jefferson had said 
fifty years before, a canine appetite for popu- 
larity, he had certainly mastered the art of ac- 
quiring it ! 

The incident of the Nation's great gift oc- 
curred in the last days of December. In Feb- 
ruary, as we know, Lafayette left the Capital to 
make the tour of the South and West, so that 
we do not find him here again until the fol- 

290 



In the City of Washington 

lowing August, when he bade America fare- 
well. 

On this last visit to Washington, Lafayette 
found John Quincy Adams, who had succeeded 
Monroe, in the White House. The new Presi- 
dent insisted that Lafayette should spend his 
last days in America under his roof, and Lafa- 
yette, having accepted this invitation, Adams 
protected the weary traveler from further ex- 
cessive entertainments, so that, strangely enough, 
within the walls of the White House Lafayette 
knew greater quiet than he had known else- 
where in America. As a rule there were few 
or no guests at dinner and the evenings were 
passed in the bosom of the Adams family. 

But the time of Lafayette's departure was 
drawing near. The frigate Brandy wine, which 
was to bear him across the sea, had almost 
reached completion. The date of departure was 
set for early September. Before it arrived, one 
last fete was given to Lafayette. The 6th of Sep- 

291 



TVith Lafayette in America 

tember was the day that had given him birth, 
and President Adams broke his plan of privacy 
to celebrate this event at a great public dinner. 
On this occasion he went so far as to break the 
precedent that restrained the President of the 
United States from making a toast. Raising his 
glass he gave, " To the 2 2d of February and 
6th of September, the birthdays of Washing- 
ton and Lafayette." 

The following morning all Washington kept 
holiday to bid Lafayette a long farewell. At 
eleven o'clock he left his private apartments 
in the White House and walked through the 
pressing crowds to the long room where the 
President and his Cabinet and the other digni- 
taries awaited his coming. Upon his entrance, 
Adams rose and addressed him in farewell. 
The speech was one of the happiest made to 
Lafayette during his long visit. Some of the 
passages seem, even yet, prophetically to set 
forth the attitude of future generations. 

292 



In the City of Washington 

" You are ours by that more than patriotic 
self-devotion with which you flew to the aid 
of our fathers at the crisis of our fate ; ours by 
that unshaken gratitude for your services which 
is a precious portion of our inheritance ; ours 
by that tie of love, stronger than death, which 
has linked your name for the endless ages of 
time with the name of Washington. . . . Speak- 
ing in the name of the whole people of the 
United States, and at a loss only for language 
to give utterance to that feeling of attachment 
with which the heart of the Nation beats as the 
heart of one man, I bid you a reluctant and 
affectionate farewell." 

Lafayette in his reply was more than once 
overcome with emotion, and in his concluding 
words his voice trembled noticeably. 

«* God bless you, Sir, and all who surround 
you. God bless the American people, each of 
their States and the Federal Government. Ac- 
cept this patriotic farewell of an overflowing 

293 



With Lafayette in America 

heart ; such will be its last throb when it ceases 
to beat." 

A short time afterwards he walked down 
the steps of the White House, entered the 
waiting carriage, and, preceded by an impos- 
ing military escort, accompanied by the Cabi- 
net, he was borne to the banks of the Potomac. 
Here awaited him a small steamboat that was 
to convey him to the Brandy wine. The shores 
were crowded with spectators as the boat bore 
him from Washington. A few hours later he 
boarded the waiting frigate at the mouth of the 
river. The next morning the Brandywine set 
sail for France, a glistening rainbow stretching 
across the Potomac • from shore to shore. That 
this bow of promise foretold that in an hour of 
future need Lafayette's name should still serve 
to cement the friendship of France and Amer- 
ica, who shall deny ? 

THE END 



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